In the mail, Shen receives a gift wrapped in pale pink tissue paper; upon unwrapping, there is a delicate porcelain plate. Each blue and yellow stroke is lovingly painted upon the creamy white surface, looking like tadpoles swimming in the creek. Enclosed, a note: You may not remember, but we broke a dish that night. Here's to replacing what's been lost. Happy birthday.
Shen isn't one for big celebrations. Every year, his father will take him out to dinner, invite a couple close business partners who he's eager to impress, and buy Shen something nice. Something practical. A tie, a crisp new shirt, a watch. Something to make them both look friendly and business oriented.
It means nothing to Shen. It's just another tool for Kusho to leverage to get what he wants, offer the picture of the perfect businessman, the perfect father. Shen endures it year after year.
Some years, he'll get something in the mail that he knows to be from Usan, even when there's no name and no return address. Perhaps that's why he opens this box as soon as he finds it, pulling the wrapping back carefully as if to preserve what little clues Usan has left about his identity and the man he's become in their years apart. Inside it is a dish, and Shen is no stranger to getting those from Usan—he seemed to be the only one who took notice of Shen's fondness for them—but something about it is off. The handwriting is off, and the package is too lovingly packed.
He reads the note, and it doesn't make sense at first. Then, the memory sinks its teeth into him.
A scream. Blood and ceramics on the tiles. Jhin's eyes, watching and waiting. Shen, too short to reach the phone.
Something shatters, and it takes Shen a moment to realise it's the dish, slipped from his fingers, spread across the floor like a spray of blood.
It can't be. But it can be no one else. Terror rips him open as he stares at the shards, then at the tissue paper, then at his hand holding him steady against the counter. Jhin. No.
... It takes him a long time before he can sweep the shards up, and he finds himself looking over his shoulder when he takes them out to the garbage.
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