#bmaahd

Chapter 20 of BMAAHD is out!

It’s finally here 💗 Chapter link below: 

Hi there! Thanks for reaching out!

This account is mostly used for lurking now ^_^ but rest assured, BMAAHD has not been abandoned -- on the contrary, we are actively working on it (slowly, but still working on it ahahaha)

“It is a shame to see you here as well, Detective. And to think that I went out of my way to warn you.” 

Viktor narrowed his eyes. As far as he could remember, the only warnings he’d ever received from anyone in the Triad were those infuriating half-baked riddles in teacups that Phichit Chulanont had crafted for him, so he had no idea what this was supposed to be all about.

…Or maybe not. A cold, lonely night from weeks and weeks ago, by now long forgotten, resurfaced in his mind. He recalled the mountain of paperwork, the dim lights, the stale air of his office a merciful reprieve from the frigid breeze outside. 

And silence. Until… 

“It was you.” The realization hit him like hoar frost, a slow but deep chill, all the way down to the bone. “You called me at my office, and you threatened me. You told me to drop the case.”

“I told you to think of who you have left.” The reminder came punctuated by a stream of smoke, mercifully directed to the ceiling instead of straight into his face. “A part of me, if you will believe it or not, actually meant well. But it seems those words did not make a difference in the end, did they?”

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So... how bout dem plague times, huh? Hope everyone is coping and/or doing okay, this cursed year will be over soon.

“I’m yours,” was all that he said. “I always have been.” 

A certain moment from the new chapter (ch 16) update of BMAAHD!

Sometimes he dreamt of Mama in the sea, floating alone in a tiny, beat-up boat that looked as though a single sour look would make it fall apart. There was no motor as far as he could tell, or anything else in the boat that she could use to steer it; she was at the mercy of the wind and the tides, every time. 

As for Viktor, he would always find himself on the shore, not too far from their house. He would be six, sixteen, twenty-six, anything else in between. Sometimes barefoot, sometimes not; sometimes in uniform, sometimes not. Sometimes draped in a flimsy hotel blanket, from his latest horrible lapse in judgment; sometimes, wearing spatters of blood on his clothes and hands. 

But one thing was always the same: he would be standing on the beach, as he was now. And he would always know, as he knew full well now, that she’d left him once before. 

And yet - 

“Vitya!” 

No matter how much the sea churned that night, he could always hear her voice, inexplicably clear as a bell. 

“Vitya! Come here!”

She would always be floating the same distance away, her hands cupped over her lips. Viktor jumped into the sea without thinking, as he always did, the frigid water shocking him to his bones, but not enough to paralyze him. He swam and swam, until his limbs ached and his lungs burned.

“Keep going! You’re almost there. Just a little bit more!”

But no matter how hard he tried - no matter how fast or how desperately he swam - he could never close the gap between himself and Mama’s boat, not even by an inch.

“I love you so much.”

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Yes, I'm alive, we're alive!! ^_^;; So, so, so sorry for the radio silence! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, happy 'we survived what was almost WWIII', etc. Hope we're all staying safe and healthy and sane throughout this pandemic crisis (I feel like March 2020 has lasted 10 years...)

In any case, barring any disasters (*knock on wood*), Ch. 17 goes up around midnight-ish Eastern Time on Saturday, April 4th.

"Go on, then,” Georgi told him. “Work your magic."

With pleasure.

The moment the second hand on his watch hit '12' , the ticking started in his head, faint but sure, calibrated to hundredths of a second both by experience and sheer perfectionism. It settled his nerves, gave him something to hold onto while he planned his approach. All the possibilities, dozens, hundreds of them stretched out before his mind, like a tree with branches that had no end. Where he would wind up - and how this would end - depended on every word he said and every response he read, and all of that depended on the clock in his head.

One more for the road, he thought to himself, as he jogged up the short flight of stairs to the bank's main entrance.

The city wasn’t as frantic as it usually was during the workweek, but its heartbeat was the rush of air and the clanging of metal as the weekend trains ran along, and it was no less alive. The somewhat sedated state of downtown threw him a bit, only for him to remember that he hadn’t spent a proper weekend in the city in… almost a month, was it? God, but it felt like it had been forever, and yet also felt like the blink of an eye.

And there was a conversation to be had, now that those weekends in Long Island would need to stop. A trip to Brooklyn, an ending, an apology - 

But not yet. Not today. 

Chinatown was a writhing mass of congested criss-crossing roads, abandoned construction projects, and clogged alleyways, almost as organic as it was chaotic. He wasn’t too surprised to find that most of the laundromats from Yuri’s list were actually open on a Sunday. What he was surprised to find - although, after giving it some more thought, perhaps a cynical part of him might have seen it coming - was how all of the boisterous greetings and friendly smiles he was welcomed with shriveled up and died the moment he asked about 'The Silk Umbrella'. 

"No. No idea what that is," was what he heard from a man whose laundromat sat on the exact same street as the tea shop. He could even see it from here, the sign with the umbrella sticking out, if he squinted hard enough.

"I can't help you," said the next shop, before shooing him away without another word.

"We don't handle silk," the next one insisted. "We never handle silk." 

It was already dark by the time he got to the last three on Yuri's list, all of them right on the border of Chinatown. The first one had already closed for the day - they closed early on Sundays, it seemed, which was a problem that Viktor had thought he would have run into sooner. The next one was populated by staff who insisted that they spoke ‘no English, no English’. No Russian, either. No French. 

Viktor didn’t have high hopes as he let himself be all but shooed from the second-to-last laundromat, and caught sight of the last one from Yuri’s list right across the street. He was also down to his last cigarette, as it turned out, and he forgot to savor it in the frustration of knowing he was very likely about to hit a dead end. What other avenues could he explore, really, after this? With any luck, Otabek’s translation team might have uncovered a case-winning clue in the ledger book since the last time he’d checked in with them, but when had he ever been that lucky? 

Screw it, he thought as he tossed what was left of his cigarette, after fleecing it for all of the warmth and comfort it could offer. He was already here, after all.

Among the laundromats he’d visited, this one sat on the smaller side. A whopping six strides separated him from the front door to the counter, where a middle-aged woman sat filling out paperwork, stopping only to look up when he walked in. Bags of folded laundry, clean if he had to guess, were stacked high and lined both walls. A dozen or so suits of various colors and sizes hung on a rack on the other side of the counter. 

A small blue lantern hung from a hook mounted high on the back wall. 

“Good afternoon! How can I help you?”

There was a young man peeking out from the back room, about Yuri’s age. As Viktor introduced himself, and asked the usual questions, the lady at the counter exchanged a glance with him that she must have thought Viktor couldn’t see. She also must have thought that he didn’t notice the almost imperceptible flinch on the boy's face as she plied him with more or less the same response he’d been hearing all afternoon. 

“Sorry. We’ve never heard of the Silk Umbrella.”

Viktor let the silence hang in the air, and waited for her to break eye contact first. “You want to try that again?” he asked calmly.

==========

It’s been awhile ^_^;;

Yuuri shifted in his arms, rolling over until he was facing Viktor completely. “Because you always catch them in the end, right?”

Viktor grinned; they’d had this conversation before, he knew. But he didn’t mind. He could talk to Yuuri about the same thing, again and again, and never get tired of the sound of his voice. “I always catch them in the end.”