#shuteu

“Ugh, I can't disagree.” She sighed and deflated like a balloon onto the table. He wasn't a neat freak by psychological-diagnosis standards, but he just knew that the table was probably slick with grease and stains, and quietly kept his disgust. “Oh!” 

“Did you just experience the second coming of Christ? The hell's with that 'oh!'?”

“Nononono, hold on!” She broke into an excited smile, and then slammed a ten dollar bill onto the table. He was definitely not touching that. “New bet: whoever can come up with the longest insults for Crow wins, and the loser has to pay their fine!”

“Keeping the art of literature alive, aren't you? Poetic. I’ll take it, Shakespeare.” 

She said she wasn't a businesswoman, but the way her eyes lit up and her confidence made him think otherwise. Because then, what else spurred him on to say yes?

It was a close tie between wardrobe borrowed from a clown's retirement phase and shut-in rooster—in reference to his hair—that barely integrated into human society, but ultimately the winner was Limbo, drunk and happy, saying: 

“Boss of the underworld… means the underworld is the world down under… means he's Australia's prime minister's secret brother!”

Then, he fell face first into the grease-slicked table, where Shu was confident that he wouldn’t be able to lift his face off without something sticking onto it.

(Luckily, he wasn't sober enough to realize he'd unintentionally partaken in their bet, but both of them agreed that it was a pretty good way to lose.)

And so, the cigarette he'd left on the ashtray was left alone to burn—not from his own haste, but simply following time and fire. 

***

“Shu, wanna bet?”

Shu took the lollipop out of his mouth. “What is it this time?”

“This will taste amazing!” Teuta exclaimed with such false confidence he had to wonder which part of her short stature had the capacity to store her lies. No, that was wrong. She wasn't the type to lie, so the fact that she truly believed in her words with all her heart made him sweat.

He glanced at the stovetop. A good dish is made from harmonization of the ingredients and the utensils, but he was sure her… dish, that was becoming one in color with the black steel, was not such a case of great mastery. “Hard pass.”

“Oh, come on! I tried really hard!”

Trying hard and succeeding aren't the same thing. “It doesn't look like it'll fill me up.”

“I saw you eat mixed nuts for lunch yesterday!”

Shu sighed, and then relented his gaze to her. “I'm a passive eater.”

“What's that? That's a thing?” She blinked multiple times incredulously, and he wanted to kiss her and wipe that cute look off her face. 

“Ah, well, you know. You're a writer, right? You know how subject and predicate works. Rather than eating food, the food was eaten by me. Get it?”

A lapse of silence for her to think, and then: “...I totally don't.”

“I don't enjoy eating as an activity. It's just something I gotta do to get on.”

The lines of her shoulder slacked, like whatever hope she was clinging onto was cut clean by his words. He disliked these situations the most—he didn't want to lie to her, but he wasn't exactly a crooked lawyer himself, to know what truths to say and how to say it best. He dealt with facts as they are, and emotionally charged problems were far from his ideal battlefield. 

Sigh. He walked over, and took a spoonful of her burning pile of cr—inedible food. It scorched the roof of his mouth, and there was no telling if his tongue was still attached. 

Apparently, Teuta thought the same. “When you're eating something really yummy, you gotta say it right that second that it's yummy. I wanted to make you feel that, too...”

He didn't trust his tongue to betray him, so he just lowered his head and looped his arms around her body, making his home on the slope of her neck. 

Teuta let a small sound of surprise slip out, and then he felt her hands looping around his waist. “What kind of dance is this?”

“Dunno. Doesn't this setup remind you of that one snake that eats itself? What's the name. Ouroboros, or something?”

“I don't know enough about stuff like that,” she sighed, and resigned herself to his arms. “Shu?”

“Hm?”

“Helvetica said that there's also a nonverbal way to express that the food was yummy. Is that what you're doing?”

“...Something like that.”

He felt more than heard her laugh, thrumming from his abdomen all the way to his chest, like she was knocking on his heart and demanding to be let in. It was meaningless, since she already had the key.

“Shu?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you, too.”

Right answer. He lifted his face and pressed a kiss behind her ear, where she was ticklish and red. 

And so, the lollipop was left at the saucer on the tabletop in place of an ashtray, and they held each other until he could feel his tongue again, and the kitchen's fire alarm blared like Crow yelling.

***

It’s not often, but sometimes Teuta was hard to read. Although he’s never seen the light in her eyes flush, she looked like….

“What are you thinking so hard about? It doesn’t suit you.”

She blinked, as if she had to take a moment to register his voice. “Oh, Shu. Sorry, what did you say? I was spacing out.”

“I was just saying that you might want to pay the fine. Crow finished your ice cream.”

She made a show of pouting exaggeratedly, and he wondered if he could kiss that look off her face, too. “That inconsiderate idiot!”

He scooted closer to her on the sofa, and wrung their hands together. “You can do better than that. What's up?”

He'd seen her try to fake a smile before, with Adam and Luka, or when she felt awkward about opening up. With him… With him, she dropped it easily, and he could not help thinking that she was so unbearably lovable. 

“I was just thinking about my brother,” she started, “I can't stop thinking about… What you told me. What I'd think or do if I ever found out who killed him, and if I even could. What if… they were justified? My brother changed. I don't know if I could say that I would still accept him even if he was alive, even though that's why I wanted to become a reporter, but like you said, there's things that can't be settled with lip service, so—”

“Woah, hold your horses. That's too many questions at once.” He raised their intertwined hands. “Follow this. When our hands go up, we breathe in. When it goes down, we breathe out. Can you do that?”

She managed a small nod, and he smiled at her. He slowly raised their hands into the air and back down, hearing the stutter in her breath slowly leveling into a predictable rhythm. When they'd finished three cycles of it, she sighed in relief. 

“Thanks, Shu.”

“Yeah.” He freed his hand from hers, reaching over to wrap it around her shoulders. “You remember Sunny Island, right?”

“Mhmm.”

“You remember what I taught you at the shooting range?”

A lapse of silence to signal her guilt, and then: “...Ahuh.”

He flicked her forehead with his other hand, and then leaned over to kiss the spot. “Don't just forget my fundamentals like that.”

He felt her laugh more than heard it, and no matter how many times he committed her to memory, each time she laughed, he felt love for her all over again. 

“Remember what I said about not holding your breath?”

“Yeah. You said that I should just focus on hitting the target.”

“Right. Holding your breath is for professionals. But Teach taught me something else, too. That before I hold my breath, I should breathe in and out as much as I can.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. That I should breathe in and out, as deeply as I can, and ground myself in the reality that I was about to steal a life.”

He felt her breathing pause, but he soldiered on, still. He wasn't Limbo with his silver tongue, not Mozu with his calmness, but he was a hitman. He was Shu Lyn O'Keefe, and this was something he knew he was able to help her out on, more than anyone else. 

“Do you think killing is a sin?”

She stretched her head to look up at him, confusion in her eyes. “Wait, aren't you an atheist?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Hmm… Yeah, I think it's a sin. Or like, it's a bad thing. Even though I like you, it's still something difficult for me.”

“How much?”

She blinked, and he wanted to kiss her. “What?”

“How much do you like me?”

“Just a little, I guess?”

“Just a little, huh?” 

“Just a little,” she repeated, and her smile made up for her words.

He held her closer to his chest, and she hesitated before bringing her arms around his body. They sat there quietly, and he let the sound of her heartbeat and the movement of her breathing ease him before he spoke. “I don't believe in God, but I do think killing is bad. No matter how terrible or heartless the person I'm killing, it's true that I'm stealing a life. I'm permanently ending their chance to make decisions for themselves.”

“The right to make decisions…”

“Yeah. Everyone has a right to make their own decisions. Even if they choose to regret it later, or they don't. But there's things only people like me can do to stop them. That's what I was taught.”

To kill what lacks both love and hatred. To look apathy with a full chest of air and to pull the trigger. The Yellow Rose of Texas. He would never allow himself to forget. 

When her silence was too much for him to treat as being an active listener, he pinched her nose. 

“Ow! What's that for?”

“Have more of a reaction, will you?”

“I was just thinking about what you said!”

So she was being an active listener. Lucky guess. “Did you find any answers to your questions?”

“Not really…”

“Good.”

“Why good?”

“Because these aren't questions with one right answers. Even when you think you've found the one that's clicks, your feelings can change, and it won't be satisfying later on.”

Although he doesn't doubt Tyra's words, the act of killing latches onto him and doesn't let go. Some days, it was like walking through mud. Another, it was like remembering his mother's lifeless body in his arms.

“So what should I do?” Her words came out quiet and hesitant, slipping past her mouth like a secret. 

“I dunno.”

“What?!” She jerked from his hold, and there was a heavy, painful sound of a thud when the top of her head hit his chin. She looked at him, her green eyes alight and angry. “Then why'd you tell me all that?”

He rubbed his chin and cringed—good news was that Teuta was right. She knew how to run, should the time come again. “It's not my expertise. Weren't you the one that said that you like what you like, and hate what you hate?”

“I did say that, but…”

“What's wrong with that? You're sad that your brother was killed. You're angry that whoever did it got away. The rest can be dealt with when it actually happens, there's no point to overthinking things right now. All you're doing is forcing yourself to feel bad about what you don't know.”

She rammed her head into his chest, which elicited an ow from him. “You're right, but that still doesn't make me feel better...”

“Then what about this?” He reached for his pocket and flashed her a silver coin. “Wanna make a bet? I'll do anything you ask if you win.”

“You're on!”

He laughed at that. She had the enthusiasm of someone who had never lost a bet before. 

He rubbed the outer rim of the coin, and then—clink!—tossed it into the air, catching it with one hand. “Your guess?”

“Heads!”

He opened his palm and smiled at her. “It's heads. What do you want to ask for this time?”

“I want you to kiss me,” she whispered, and her expectant stare was too much. 

“You're terrible at picking prizes as always.” What was the difference if he won all the same?