đđ·đŽ đ°đđ đŸđ” đ·đđŒđŸđ đžđœ đ·đŸđđđŸđ; the softer side of the incoming knife, the pleasantries in our shared suffering. his laugh is dry and uncouth, sarcastic as it is curiously genuine, disappearing quietly before it lives too long. he props his arms along his knees and slouches forward, head hanging between his legs. the inside of his mouth is still all iron, and his body aches with old pain. blood smears and cakes in parts of his hair. jiÄng keeps a secret grin to himself. never been funny, he thinks, but damn if it tickles.
   âyouâd be surprised. thinks everything is more than it is. no getting off that ride once it starts.â no shocker here. the question is what he wonât do. what he wouldnât do to see you stay perfectly in place, pretty as you are in his minds eye, down to the last puzzle piece. heâs more calculating than he lets on, more down the wire than one could imagine. itâs a truth thatâs buried itself deep within him, haunting him for years after the fact. adam was something none could understand. he was something no one was supposed to know.
   evâs red smoke wafts through the room and colors their world. jiÄng makes no response to his confession. between them, it didnât matter. it wasnât necessary for them to hate or like each other, but jiÄng continued on as a ticking bomb, strung against adam as if to still do his bidding. trapped in the spiders web. he closes his eyes for a moment and inhales deeply, leaning back against the wall. his eyes stand out in the dim of the night as he stares forward, mind elsewhere, lips pressed into a thin line.
   âthatâs the problem,â he says, voice low. the walls have ears. âi couldnât get him to come back even if i tried. i canât make him go anywhere. canât make him do anything. no one can.â
  COMFORT IS A DEAD WISH. NON-EXISTENT FOR GHOULS, WORTH nothing to humans, hard to receive from those that truly deserved it. despite this juxtaposition of recent events filling his life however, ev remains friendly. confides in nothing other than himself, that heâs someone who lives life like the rest of the world. not always the devil on a night shift, the cityâs man-eater. heâs not someone who shapes suspicion into threats; that was mindless antagonism. rather, heâs like a cat tailing an odd smell, curiosity equivalent to an animalâs. and he knows, knows quite well, that this route is rather futile.
 and yet, they sit across from each other.
so alike on opposite ends of a chasm, facing each other but not really seeing, listening but not really hearing, and words did little to bridge the gap between them; as quickly as they were constructed, they fell, until the idea of crossing seemed as foolish as icarus attempting to out fly the sun. discourse quells them, but tonight, if only for a moment do they share reprieve. outside it is as dark as the sky is alive and indiscriminate;Â thick sheets of rain drape over the tinny roof of his balcony like coins from a pocket. thunder booms outside, breaking what stream of conversation theyâve maintained thus far, which is nothing they havenât already discussed countless times before. words fall from jiangâs voice while red exhaust bleeds from evâs, as if to illuminate each statement further, highlighting the practicality of it all. his prolonged staring isnât at the other, but through him. his eye leers the vague shape of a door behind him.
 far behind him. theyâre closer to the window than they are the door: two means of entering and escaping. one is smaller, but closer, he thinks. the lack of convenience is intentional, because from here, the light from the kitchen stove shows through a thin slit at the bottom, splaying over creaky wooden planks, between the legs of jiangâs chair. ev rarely turned on this light. one thing out of many things in this apartment that wasnât used for its manufactured purpose. inconsequential reasons, really-- nothing other than a signal to him now; his makeshift alarm serves for what may pass through and obscure that yolky shade of tranquil consistency. heâs pictured it in his mind countless times already throughout the course of this rendezvous: something approaches the door. it has footsteps that are human in design but not quite bearing the same cadence ones would make in stride. irregular silence follows after- movements that are unsure, yet calculating at the same time. something that knows what its doing, but doesnât want to present itself just yet. an âabandoned stepâ, they call it. itâs the only way he can explain it to himself. itâll sound like someone was walking, was planning to walk farther, then suddenly stopped. jiang was right: heâs smarter than he lets on. Â
 ev waits. he reminds himself to count each amount of sentences well before responding, down to the word choice. it doesnât matter what we talk about. heâll want to know. he hates being left out of things, one second too long and heâll know something is going on, without him. which is why the walls have ears. they canât risk waking him up. he waits and stares, pausing before responding, timing a reply. wanting rain to mask this secret heâs kept stowed away for months. the walls have ears.
 â Iâve seen his sister. â lightning explodes. the room is fully visible, nightmarishly, for a flash. jiang figure remains fixed on his mind long after the light passes and the thunder rolls, vanishing under the shadows once more. nothing was behind him. the door hasnât opened. ev glares through the smoke. shapes emerge, then vanish, then emerge again.
 outside he hears a harsh snapping sound, then several after. wood crackling. smoke. sparks. hissing, silence. rain comes down harder against the roof and droplets find their way into his lap. itâs darker now--colder, too, and ev surmises by the unforgiving hand of none other than irony itself that it had been something disruptive enough to wipe out an entire blockâs worth of electricity: a telephone pole. unfazed, he swipes his thumb along the grooves of a lighter for it to sharply ignite with a click. across loosened shadows, the contours of a flameâs light drowning them both in a haunting glow. only his mouth, eyes, and bits of his face were visible. â Iâve seen everything. Things he shouldnât tell people-- where he came from, his past, his house. His family pictures, scattered underneath piles of shit; couldnât tell which was trash and which were just animal carcasses underneath more shit. He doesnât want anyone to touch it either, got mad at me once for moving bird bones off of a fucking windowsill. Told me about you, about âKageruâ-- how youâre supposed to be dead,â ev pauses. he seems to ponder.Â
 â How everyoneâs supposed to be dead.âÂ
 a hooked edge smile curves around his teeth. there is no joy to it, no pleasure in the knotted rage buried inside of his belly and the grit of his furious teeth. a sad band of ghosts reside here now, hollow like a cored apple. there is a familiarity inside of it all he canât recognize yet, a cold mirror from years ago with arms lashed tight to his ribs now figuring his structure today. dead, yet not quite, but something remains. he knows this was what he once was, outside the warm steam of organs serving as the womb he birthed from. existence doesnât need to be explained outside of a choice of living, and if not living, simply coming back for none other than the concept of it being possible at all.Â
â When really, it should be him, not you. Any of you. â ev adds, an absent pitch to his tone as he forces himself up onto his heels, back to standing. what blood had been pulled from the mangled wound of teeth and flesh now lingers on the bottom curve of the boyâs bandages -- stitched into nothingness, heâs helped a ghost heal the very wounds that might of killed him the first go-around of mortality. then, it hits him, the glaringly obvious revelation this fact precedes him that, yeah, thatâs right-- jiang probably did die from something similar to this. he knows what claws digging into eye sockets feel like just as much as he would a broken jaw.
  â What holds me back from killing him could be the same exact reason that held you back from leaving, I guess. Easier said than done. â
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