Archive of Our Own

Tingyun’s consciousness is hazy and clouded, her mind picking at pieces she can’t quite put together. She twists her head around, seeing the blur of rain on the skiff window.

“Listen, you should take it easy.” The voice coming from her left wriggles into her ear like smoke, filling her head, the blood beating loud and hot in her ears. “Relax your muscles.”

A strange kind of suggestion smothers the entire skiff like a fog descending. Tingyun’s muscles soften, and she falls back into her seat. Her head lolls to the left and she sees a strange and beautiful woman, unfamiliar. She smiles, a smile that looks pleasant but makes Tingyun shiver.

Tingyun moves her jaw to the left, then to the right, feeling something dislodge enough that she can see clearly again.

This isn’t right. This is not the person meant to be driving — yes, she remembers, she had two Cloud Knights escorting her to… The haze thickens and then clears. They were on their way to a trade meeting. They had to stop. And then… That woman. The woman next to her now.

Tingyun feels a prickle at the back of her neck. Call it what you want: for all her training in her the cold art of numbers and contracts, nothing sways business more than the gut instinct, and hers is lurching.

“Where are my guards?” Tingyun asks, the words heavy.

“They had someplace to be,” the woman says, checking her lipstick in the rearview mirror, rubbing at a smear with her gloved index finger. “But not to worry. I’m here to see you where you need to go right now.”

Her eyes fall on the two matching pistols at the woman’s hips. She takes a moment boxing the surge of fear up and pushing it away, deep and far away, before she relaxes her body and curls her fingers around the fan in her lap.

“I think you have me confused with someone else,” Tingyun says softly, smiling a little at her. “I know we foxians can look the same to outsiders. I promise I won’t tell.”

The woman smiles, looking over at her. “Resistant to my suggestions, are we? No matter. The script never called for you to be impeded by it anyway.”

Tingyun keeps quiet. So she knows who Tingyun is, and wants her specifically because of who she is. Not great. In fact, it’s quite terrible — she has never had to figure her way out of a situation like this before. She looks at the backseat and she’s not surprised that it is empty, but she worries where her Cloud Knights are. Could she have killed them? Dropped them off in the wilderness they’re driving over?

“Where are you taking me?” she asks, weighing the words carefully in her mouth, trying to get rid of the residual effect of whatever was done to her. 

“We are going for a little joyride. I hope you don’t mind too much. I do so love the coast here. The sea is gorgeous.” 

“I do not have time for this.” 

“You will find you have plenty of it.” She tucks a stray strand of purple hair behind her ear. “Don’t worry. I don’t bite unless asked.” 

It does not ease Tingyun’s concerns at all.

The woods peter out into a smattering of strangely shaped hills and dunes, and it takes a moment for Tingyun’s amicassador training in geography to kick in: they must have been shaped by whipping winds. The way ecosystems work on planets still baffles her sometimes, that their winds are not consistently controlled and measured, but rather wild and untameable.

The skiff comes to a stop on a patch of solid green grass, the leaves bent close to the ground. 

Before she can take a moment to assess what to do, the woman takes out her gun and shoots the control panel of the skiff, the noise making Tingyun flinch. The electrics crackle and then all the screens die. She really does not want to give Tingyun even a dream’s chance of running.

“Funny,” the woman remarks as she holsters the gun. “Normally people are far more scared of me than you are.”

Tingyun looks at her strangely opaque purple eyes, and in another place, another circumstance, she might have found them mesmerizing. 

The woman steps out first, circling the skiff to Tingyun’s side where she opens the door. 

“I do not look my best,” Tingyun says apologetically. 

“Don’t be shy now.” She unfolds a large, black umbrella, just big enough to fit both of them under. She holds out her hand and it’s not really an invitation, but it is a gesture of courtesy nonetheless.

“I do not even know your name, benefactor.” Tingyun is not shy about the acid in the last part. She is testing the waters, trying to get a grip on who this person is and how far the boundary goes. 

“Kafka.”

Tingyun looks up at her and memorizes her face, every little line in it, the smug smile, the peculiar eyes, before she takes her hand and steps outside alongside her. 

The rain is coming in at a sharp angle, but Kafka angles the umbrella just enough so that they are spared from getting soaked. She puts an arm around the lower back of Tingyun, who stiffens up immediately, but nonetheless — what choice does she really have in the matter? — lets herself be guided closer to the edge.

The sea comes at the coast with a viciousness she’s never witnessed before. She cannot say she has seen many oceans. Ponds, pools, lakes, all carefully maintained and kept pristine by filters, water levels checked and monitored. This is nothing but raw nature, something unheard of on the Luofu. It feels like it has its own gravity, pulling at her. 

The steep chalk cliffs drop down, down, down, and far below she can see the waves breaking on rocks, white foam frothing from the impact. It’s dizzying. Terrifying. 

Why here?

“Don’t you just love the sea when it’s like this?” Kafka asks. “Raw, untamed, furious. Winds race across this ocean unimpeded by terrain, whipping the sea into a frenzy. They say there’s more unknown lurking in this ocean than there are undiscovered planets left to find.”

“Why am I here, Kafka?” Tingyun’s on her best behavior. But she wants to know how much danger she is in. Normally, she can read a situation like a book. This one escapes her comprehension. It doesn’t make sense, at all.

“I’m setting the scene, amicassador.” She looks at Tingyun closely, squinting. “Are you afraid?”

“I am… Taking it in.”

“If you are afraid, you have no reason to be.”

“Kind of you to say, but the evidence on that is inconclusive.”

Kafka laughs. “If I had any need to kill you, you wouldn’t be here. Relax.”

If only it were that easy.

“You are here because I needed to shift the board some. I hope you don’t mind. As a matter of future facts, you shouldn’t. It has some great benefits for you in it.” 

“Where are my guards?”

“Ordering coffees at a rest stop. The compulsion should wear off soon. I only needed to get them away from you, not kill them. That, as Elio said, would have been too big a mess for you.”

It tracks, which annoys Tingyun a little. She doesn’t like anything about this situation, doesn’t like how vulnerable she has been rendered, and grappling with this strange power Kafka has, the suggestion that she speaks and puts into people’s minds… Part of her wishes she had that. 

“Now, pay attention. This is important.”

“I’m all ears, benefactor.”

Kafka smiles. “Look at you. Trembling like a leaf and still trying to charm me. It’s positively intoxicating.”

Tingyun had not even noticed that. “It’s far colder here than I am used to.”

Kafka thrusts the umbrella into her hands, shrugging out of her black coat. She drapes it over Tingyun’s tense shoulders, smoothing out the collar and fastening it with a small chain across her chest. “There. Better?”

The fabric is soft against Tingyun’s bare skin and still warm from Kafka’s body. 

“Thank you. Kafka.” The name is hard in her mouth, all edges. She hopes never to have to get used to it.

Kafka raises her left arm, pushing back the sleeve of her shirt to glance at a vintage wristwatch. A rare sight — not even worth investing in for Tingyun’s shops, too difficult to sell as there are not many who repair them anymore. Some products just die out and never come back.

She looks at Tingyun, and her eyes seem… Soft? 

The moment she thinks she has a grip on Kafka, something slips away and renders the ground underneath her liquid.

“In about fifteen minutes they will be here, and you will be escorted back to the trade conference,” Kafka says, and Tingyun can’t look away from her face. “They will fuss over you, they will make a big deal about it, trying to persuade you to put a halt to the trade negotiations to rest up. Don’t let them. They will be extremely embarrassed this could happen on their territory. They have worked so hard to prove their security is solid, and then this happens. Imagine their gratitude when you assure them that you do not hold ill will.”

As Kafka speaks, it conjures the scene in front of Tingyun’s inner eye, and she knows this is an advantage the Sky-Faring Commission has only been able to dream about — if she can cut the tax levy on their imports from this world while the Luofu is in the system for a few years… 

“You are very generous to offer me this information,” Tingyun says carefully. “But it is hardly part of the art to ask nothing in return.”

“If you are thinking about the cost you have to pay for this, you should just do that outright.”

“That would be quite crude.”

“Of course. Can’t have the amicassador forgetting her manners while at the edge of the world, now can we?”

Tingyun shows her a measured smile, lips pressed together, eyes half-lidded. “It weighs on my heart to take this information without knowing what you would ask for me in return.” She wants to take it, very badly, but not if her hand is at risk of being bitten off at the wrist for it.

“You poor thing,” Kafka purrs, a little cruel, “can’t focus because of it? You shouldn’t worry. Just make sure you look dazed when they get here. Sell them on it. Be very soft and endearing. It will make them more than amenable to the deal you have in mind.”

“Is that so?”

“Why, nervous about playing the helpless maiden?”

Tingyun makes a face, arranging her features so her eyes look bigger and mouth smaller. She has done it in front of the mirror many times, practicing the range of what her body and particularly her face can do. It’s as important as anything she actually says in negotiations, and everyone else across from her at the table has their particular weakness. She is only playing the part necessary for the Xianzhou Luofu.

“Now, for the final touch…” 

Kafka cups Tingyun’s face between her hands and Tingyun takes a step back, her tail swishing in anxious circles. 

“Relax. You need to look the part. Just to make you look a little roughed up.”

“You are really determined.” Unsaid: she can’t wrap her mind around why, nor why these details matter, and especially how she knows so much about how it will all play out. It feels less like a living, breathing negotiation and more like she’s a set piece being assembled for the stage. 

“I just read the script and follow the stage directions,” Kafka says, leaning close to Tingyun. “This may hurt, but it will all be worth it.” 

At first, Tingyun thinks she’s about to kiss her, but instead Kafka’s lips close around her lower lip, her teeth sinking into the tender flesh and biting down. Tingyun yelps, the shudder of pain catching her off-guard, and her eyes fill with tears at the unexpected sting. Kafka licks at the wound, worrying it with the tip of her tongue, and Tingyun whimpers. 

“So delicate,” Kafka murmurs, tilting Tingyun’s chin to inspect the damage. “But not quite enough.”

“Do you enjoy hurting me like this?”

“I could ask you if there’s no part of you that is drawing some twisted thrilling enjoyment from it.” 

The question catches Tingyun off-guard with how brutally forward it is, and she doesn’t register the movement of Kafka’s hand against her cheek until a hot sting slices through her skin.

She hisses a little, Kafka flicking at the wound’s edges with the sharp edge of the ring she used to carve it out. 

“There. Perfect. Messed up enough.” She wipes at a tear spilling from Tingyun’s eye. “Was I too harsh?”

“You have been nothing but that.”

“Want me to kiss you to make it better?” Kafka teases.

Tingyun meets her gaze and it’s like gravity slants towards her. She is used to gravitational fluctuations onboard the Luofu, but being near Kafka is different. Strange and peculiar and entirely outside of what she normally would like. She wants it safe and neat, and here she is, bleeding on a rainy cliffside, wearing a stranger’s coat, and nothing is making any sense at all. 

She thinks, briefly, that maybe she does want that kiss, and that thought is peculiar in all its dimensions, her hands white-knuckling the umbrella’s fine-carved wooden handle.

“I’m out of time,” Kafka says, the spell broken. “You'll have to finesse the story yourself, that’s outside my script. Blah blah blah, Kafka was so terrifying, she had me at gunpoint, she did terrible things to me. I’m sure you catch my drift. Do that little lip quiver you did in the skiff. It’s a winner.”

Kafka hands her a folded fabric napkin. “Time for me to go. Good luck.”

And time collapses into a blur. Tingyun watches in frozen astonishment as Kafka simply drops off the side of the cliff, right as the howl of sirens grow loud enough to hear over the howling winds. She keeps her gaze on the water, hoping or dreading to catch sight of the magenta hair and the white shirt, but the officers bundle her up like she’s nothing but a leaf in their hands, bringing her back to the conference. 

It all plays out exactly like Kafka foretold. And knowing is half the battle, Tingyun rising to the occasion. Yes, she does the lip quiver, but once at the table, she presses her demands with such finesse that she blushes when they agree, having to hide her face behind the fan before she makes a fool of herself. And they find it endearing. They are ready to trip over each other to please her and the Sky-Faring Commission. 

By the time she retires to the suite, she has successfully negotiated a new bilateral agreement she thought out of her reach. It’s a mixed feeling. She doesn’t know what to make of it — it’s a swirl of emotions and messes, tangled together without a clear beginning or end. 

The easy thing would be to stick to the story Kafka fed her. To turn it in her mouth until it manifests as the only truth of what happened. It’s unlikely anyone will ever find a way to disagree with her — even the Cloud Knights cannot piece their story together cohesively enough to be considered reliable witnesses.

But it already chafes at her. Not that she minds telling lies when necessary, but that she can’t muster up the correct emotions to attach to the truth.

She thinks about that promised, undelivered kiss, and how much she would have liked it. Just to see. Just to put it out of her mind.

She taps in a quick report on the screen, slipping in a sentence at the end that she knows will catch a certain someone’s attention, if only because she wants a degree of guidance on this matter, then heads to the shower. 

The water is scalding hot to her cold limbs, softening the strain of the day out of her by the minute. She conditions the fur on her tail, rinsing it thoroughly, her head a mess of thoughts she should shove into a box and forget. She knows that, logically. 

It would all be so much easier if she could do that. If she could stare chaotic temptation in the eye without wanting to bite like this.

After a shower, she receives an incoming call alert from one of the Charioteers. She accepts it, still wrapped in a bathrobe. “Madam Yukong,” she says softly. “I did not expect you to be so eager to call me tonight already.”

“Don’t play coy with me, Tingyun,” Yukong says, firm as ever, and clearly never resting, already having read through her initial report. “If you’re getting at their disruption working out in your favor, just say it.”

“I would not suggest anything so radical. Merely…”

“Don’t imply dangerous things, Tingyun,” Yukong warns.

“I’d never imply anything, Madam.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” Yukong pauses, her hologram oddities imperceptible to most but Tingyun knows her beat by the way her nostrils flare. To others, it would be nothing. To Tingyun, it’s practically fireworks of emotion, blinding in their brightness. “It casts too much suspicion on where our allegiances lie. Stick to the story, for better or worse. The outcome is too distant to dabble in uncertainties.”

Tingyun punches in a few codes in her phone, shooting the hologram a sorrowful smile. “How strange. It seems my first report has been corrupted with glitches. Highly unfortunate.”

“Very tragic indeed. I expect a new one in my inbox within twelve hours.” Yukong’s voice softens. Not by a lot, there is always a degree of sternness to her, but enough that Tingyun knows Yukong is speaking off the record, on a more personal note. “I am doing you a favor with regards to the request, under the condition that you officially do not have these, nor even know of them. I’m forwarding the files we have to you on the Stellaron Hunter in question. The redactions, however, will not be up for debate.”

For Yukong, it’s as close to a pat on the head and being told good job she will ever get.

It’s a sorry state of a document that she reads through. Not only is it barely worthy of being called intel, anything worthwhile is scraped out of it, leaving large blank swaths. She highlights one piece of information in the wanted notices from the IPC: She likes coats and violin music. 

It’s not much. Most would say it’s nothing at all. Tingyun knows how to spin that if she ever needs to. 

Three years later, Tingyun is on the Matsu space station. She is staring out the window of yet another neutral hotel room, overlooking the shopping promenade that stretches for miles straight down the core of the place, neon signs competing for attention with lurid promises of luck, fortune, and love. Except the promenade is empty. There’s no one to be lured into the thousands of shops and kitchens stacked on top of each other. And the thick silence is getting on her nerves.

An hour ago, the entire station went into lockdown, sending all the trade delegations back to their rooms with some vague excuse amounting to nothing. Tingyun has tried to find out why, she’s none the wiser. The internal TV stations are running the same old shows, only interrupted by a looping message shown every few minutes: STAY INSIDE. IT IS ONLY A SAFETY PRECAUTION. ALL IS WELL, framing the drab drama shows. 

It’s all out of her control which is something she is used to, she cedes it frequently enough to those above her in the Commission, but that is a known quantity. She pours herself a glass of water and fine, she will pretend all is well for another hour, but then she will figure out a way around the station-wide communication lockdown and get Yukong to pull her out.

A knock on the door interrupts the silence, so abrupt that it makes Tingyun’s tail stand on end. Somehow this is worse than being left alone. She waits, holding her breath, hoping she misheard. Hoping there is no one on the other side of the door.

Another knock, more insistent this time.

She inhales, relaxing her tail as much as she can before she opens the door. 

Out of everyone in the galaxy, she can’t say she is surprised at seeing Kafka. Somehow, it makes sense, in that terrible way fate ties people together and forces their lives to intersect, over and over.

Except Kafka looks terrible. She looks closer to death than life — there are dark stains on her shirt and her eyes are glossy and she’s leaning so heavily on the wall that it’s a wonder she hasn’t fallen over.

“Oh,” Kafka says, laughing hoarsely. There’s fresh blood on her teeth. “It’s you.”

And she smiles as she collapses into Tingyun’s arms.

Tingyun knows she should let go, let Kafka drop and leave her on the carpeted corridor floor for security to pick up. If she’s here, then arguably the lockdown has to do with her. The dots connect and here’s the answer, passed out in her arms. 

If she lets go, she releases this problem.

She flicks her ear once, twice.

If only she wasn’t so damn sentimental.

Nothing good can come of her ill-advised choice.

With much effort, she drags Kafka into her room before she darts out down the corridor. There’s a first-aid kit stashed behind a sleek panel, but on the way back to the room she comes to her senses. 

She doesn’t owe Kafka anything. She doesn’t need to do this. She could simply alert the peace-keeping officers and have them take her away. Out of sight, out of mind. It would be so very, very easy, and she doesn’t understand why she can’t do it. Is it some sort of conscientious compulsion? Did Kafka do that thing she did to her all those years ago? 

The thought sends a shiver down Tingyun’s spine, even as she returns to the room and shuts the door behind her. Inside, it’s just her and Kafka and blood dripping onto the floor, creating a puddle. It strikes her that the damage may be too bad for her rudimentary first-aid skills to patch up. A dead Stellaron Hunter is even more of a problem.

She takes a deep breath. One disaster at a time. If she manages to save Kafka, maybe she can be the one owed something because that moment from three years ago still hangs over her, a concerning burden that has her dreading open messages in case a favor is called in. In a way, it’s just a reasonable move, clear the slate. Or so she reasons.

The room reeks of blood and gunpowder, and Tingyun carefully steps over Kafka’s still-breathing body as she moves between the bathroom and bedroom. She spreads out all the towels she can find on the bed, knowing from the dark stain on the floor that it likely won’t be enough to soak up the mess.

It takes a horrific amount of energy to get Kafka up on the bed and she’s sweating by the time she’s got her bleeding all over the sheets. Terrific. Just great.

She straddles Kafka’s legs and puts the first aid kit next to her on the bed. Before she can do anything about the situation, she needs to know what she is dealing with. She pushes back the black coat, warm and sticky, and surveys the damage.

There’s a gunshot wound in her side, but the blood is coagulating. She unbuttons the shirt and carefully peels at the layers, but the motion of fabric moving jolts Kafka out of her unconsciousness and she’s lightning-fast, hand on the gun. 

Tingyun is just as quick, her reflexes matching Kafka’s. She has the edge of her reticulated fan pressed up under Kafka’s chin at the same time as Kafka has the gun to her head. It’s not lethal, not unless she applies enough pressure, but it’s the fool’s blind: what Kafka doesn’t know might kill her. She just needs to pull her bluff through and pull them back from the thin precipice of staring down mutually assured destruction.

“Calm down,” Tingyun says, softening her voice. “Kafka. It’s me. You do remember me, don’t you?”

Kafka blinks, disoriented, before the pain reminds itself and ripples across her face, contorting her features. She’s almost beautiful as she gasps, inhaling sharply as she wakes up to the sticky situation she is in. Tingyun resists the urge to stick her finger in the wound just to get her to fold faster.

“Lower the gun. You wouldn’t want to hurt me, would you? I’m the only one here who can help you.”

Kafka fumbles for something in the inner coat of her jacket, but her grip is weak and the phone tumbles out. Tingyun picks it up and lights up the lockscreen. No bars for her either. Everyone is in the dark.

“They shut down the communication network,” she says, turning the display towards Kafka. “I am all you got. So lower the gun or you will bleed out.”

Kafka drops her hand, sighing. “I’m all out of bullets anyway.”

Tingyun bites the tip of her tongue, lowering her fan onto the nightstand. She wants to say many vicious and cruel things, but how much would they help in this situation? They would amuse Kafka, and her laughter is not what she needs right now.

She fishes antisepetic cleaning swabs out of the first aid kid and dabs at the gory mess until she uncovers the edges of the wound. It’s not big, but not pretty either. Strange, how such a small impact site can cause so much bleeding.

“Don’t worry,” Kafka says, her voice slurring at the edges. “It went clean through.”

“Lucky you.”

“Is it luck if I knew it would?”

Tingyun doesn’t quite understand what she means, but she files it away for a moment in time when neither of them are bleeding out.

“This will hurt,” Tingyun says. She peels off Kafka’s left glove and puts it in her mouth, fitting it between her upper and lower teeth. “Be a good girl and bite down.”

She’s not exactly gentle, and she’s terrible at first aid, but she knows enough of the basics that she can at least use the auto-stitcher to close up the wound. And while she only has to aim it, the other half of the job is making sure Kafka stays still. 

It’s hard to tell if Kafka is enjoying the pain or hating it — her groans sound remarkably tinged with moans. She writhes and Tingyun has to pin her thigh down to make sure she stays in place while the auto-stitcher knits her flesh back together. It’s ugly and messy, Kafka’s face growing paler. 

With the front side of the wound closed, Tingyun takes a break to breathe through her mouth. If she smells anymore of the warm iron scent of blood she might be sick.

“Roll over a little for me,” she says. “I need to get the exit wound as well.”

Kafka mutters something through the glove, too muffled to make out, and does what she can to brace herself, grabbing onto the headboard. 

The exit wound is a little lower on her backside, and Tingyun has to push down the waist of Kafka’s shorts to uncover it fully. She tries very hard not to think of the curve of Kafka’s ass further down, nor how Kafka surges her hips up off the bed at the first stinging contact with the cleaning swab. She definitely does not point her eyes up at the ceiling when the auto-stitcher starts piecing the wound together and Kafka’s sounds verge on a moan. 

When the little gadget beeps as it finishes, she drops it in the trashcan and shoots up from the bed to frantically wash her hands. What is that woman trying to put in her head? What is wrong with her?

A knock at the door, firmer and heavier than Kafka’s, has Tingyun freezing in her spot.

“Amicassador Tingyun?” A muffled, deep voice on the other side calls out. “Amicassador, open up, IPC officer.”

“Coming,” she calls back, the hot water scalding her hands. She studies herself in the mirror for a few seconds, taking three deep breaths. It’s all she needs to come back to her amicassador role, pulling herself into a presentable figure.

She darts out and Kafka has limped off the bed. Good. She gathers up all the bloody towels and first aid kit and the gun and pushes them under the bed, then whirls around and grabs her fan. With it in hand, she can feel the calmness going deeper than surface-level. She can do this. She has charmed statesmen and generals with less. 

Kafka meets her gaze and she looks a mess, barely kept together, shirt unbuttoned, but nods at Tingyun as she quietly moves to a dead zone in the nook where the door swings inwards. A flash of metal in her hand: a gun matching the one she had pointed at Tingyun not long ago. Figures. 

Tingyun just hopes this one has at least one spare bullet, if—

The officer knocks again, clearly annoyed at being kept waiting. 

Tingyun shakes her head, unfolds her fan, and opens the door with a soft and tender smile, gazing up at the tall IPC officer reverently. 

“I apologize, I was in the bathroom and not presentable,” she says, lilting her voice. 

He remains stern, though not entirely unfazed — there’s a subtle twitch in his cheek. “Amicassador, we are searching this floor to find an escaped fugitive.”

“How horrible!” Tingyun exclaims, covering her mouth with the fan. “As you can see, it is just me here.” She steps to the side, letting him peek in, showing him that there is absolutely nothing here to think about, nothing to be concerned with. 

But his face doesn’t relax. “Your bed…”

She throws a glance over her shoulders. Ah. There are blood stains blooming on the white sheets, bright red and eye-catching.

“It is that time of my cycle,” Tingyun says without missing a beat. “I was ill-prepared. Do you have any idea when this lockdown will end? I need to buy the necessary products.” She blushes, looking up at him under her eyelashes, fluttering them slightly as she wafts her fan, her perfume washing over him. 

“I’m so sorry, we have no timeline on that. Let me, I can… I can go buy some for you.” Now he is the one blushing.

“Would you? I’d be in your debt. I’m so embarrassed, I got blood all over.”

“Don’t fret. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

If beauty is a playing card all of its own, Tingyun knows how to play it at the right moment. Beauty is versatile and shapeable, bendable to one’s will. And here, she puts it into the vulnerability of being caught at a bad moment, showing a hint of weakness that draws him in. It’s very easy with these types of people who get into jobs like these — they want to help so badly it ruins them. She’s always enjoyed using people like that, not maliciously, but what harm is there in getting them to help her out a little? To bend their knees just an inch for her desires?

As he leaves she closes the door, looking at the room from this new perspective. Nothing else revealing can be seen, hidden behind angles and furniture. It’s good enough.

It’d be better without Kafka, but that’s an issue for later.

“Figures the script would send me to you,” Kafka says, voice low.

“The script?” Tingyun furrows her brow. Again, that strange metaphor Kafka keeps circling around.

“Don’t worry about it.” Kafka relaxes, sliding down on the floor. “You wrap people around your little finger like it’s nothing. It’s very sexy.”

“And you use raw power to force them. I remember what you did.”

“Ah. I’m not in any shape to use that, so don’t worry about it. For now.”

“Unfortunate, as it could have been quite useful right now.” But also fortuitous for her, as she can at least ensure some semblance of power in this situation. “So you mean to tell me I am helping you out of my own free will?”

“And kind-hearted nature, yes. That is all you.” Kafka’s head slumps forward, chin resting on her chest. 

Tingyun crouches down until she’s face to face with Kafka, cupping her chin and giving it a nudge. “You need to stay awake.”

Kafka hums, her eyes opening slowly. “I think the adrenaline is wearing off,” she murmurs, slanted smile. She is clearly exhausted but trying to play it off — or worse, Tingyun thinks, she doesn’t feel it. She has to keep her talking, keep her conscious, at least for a while longer until the immediate risk is gone.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, trying to keep her tone light and easy.

“Didn’t they tell you? Well. It doesn’t really matter now, does it? You will find out soon enough.”

“You interfered.”

“Just a little.”

“Why did you come to my room, out of all the rooms in here?”

“I was told to. The script called for it.”

Before Tingyun can formulate the question she wants to ask in a polite enough manner, her ears pick up footsteps coming down the hallway, and stands up, angling her head up at the bright light overhead. An old trick she picked up from her predecessor was that a particular conglomerate representative, handling the major contracts for his region, had a soft spot for teary-eyed foxians. She felt no shame about it — after all, it had drawn far more favorable results than anyone had managed in centuries when she had played that card. 

The knock is softer this time, almost hesitant.

Tingyun opens the door with a shy smile, her eyes shimmering wet — not from gratitude or shame, but she has avoided blinking so long that they’re watering. The effect on the IPC officer is the same. He’s stuttering, his attention entirely fixed on her to the point that he starts checking his pockets for tissues, but by the time he’s found some she is shutting the door. She listens as he sighs, his heavy footsteps growing distant before she looks down at Kafka.

“He’s gone.”

“Excellent,” Kafka mutters, holstering the gun. “Give me a hand?”

It’s not a pretty thing, how she pulls and drags Kafka back to bed, the short distance seeming a marathon as Kafka’s lingering adrenaline has completely evaporated. Lowering her onto the bed takes a minute and Tingyun boxes her in with rolled-up blankets and towels so she won’t turn over and agitate the stitches. 

Kafka pats the empty half of the bed with a wicked grin. “Don’t you want to rest a little as well? You look exhausted, darling.”

She is. She really, truly is. She sits down gingerly on the bed, pulling her legs up under her as she leans back on the thick fluffy pillows. Never in a hundred years had she trained for an afternoon like this. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, what is this script you keep mentioning?” Tingyun asks, keeping her voice airy, as if the answer doesn’t matter. 

“I never mind you asking, if it means I get to hear your voice,” Kafka says, and if Tingyun didn’t know better she would worry the Stellaron Hunter is flirting with her. “The script is Elio’s thing. He sees what will happen, and writes it down for us to follow.”

“That’s it?”

“I have known every twist and turn my life will take since I met him.”

“Are you implying I am some scripted aspect of your life? Set dressing to decorate your days?”

“Of course not.” Kafka grins, and it’s not reassuring at all. “You do what you want in your life. I don’t know everything about it. I didn’t know it would be you behind the door when I knocked. Elio doesn’t write every detail down, because to him, not every detail matters. If it’s not in the script, it’s fair game.”

“How ingenious,” Tingyun says kindly, meaning none of it.

Kafka reaches her hand over to Tingyun’s face, brushing a strand of hair away from her cheek but her fingers linger, warm and gentle. 

“So, honorable amicassador… What would be an acceptable show of gratitude for your hard work today? After all, you are harboring a wanted criminal in your hotel suite. It’d be rude of me not to thank you.” 

Kafka pushes herself up a little, grimacing at the painful effort as she tries to bring her face closer to Tingyun’s. 

“I do believe I offered something you didn’t take last time. Has your mind changed? Has temptation swayed you yet?”

Tingyun shifts herself dangerously close to Kafka, their lips almost touching, feeling her hot breath on her skin. She plays with the thought: it would be a dangerous thing, wickedly dangerous, and it has festered in her dreams, the opportunity that slipped through her fingers. And yet. 

She puts her index finger over Kafka’s lips. “Not tonight, no,” she says, a twinge of regret lacing her words.

If Kafka is disappointed at her putting distance back between them, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she reaches over to the nightstand and grabs the notepad and pen there, quickly scribbling something down.

“Well, at least have this. Quid pro quo. For services rendered.” She folds it up and hands it over to Tingyun. “Take it. You’ll be the hero of the month on your fleet.”

Tingyun unfolds the note and her stomach lurches. The names of the merchants she is meant to be meeting with, followed by they are all loyal to the Yaoshi. It’s not exactly news, not to her — part of her even being here is to figure out if there was any truth to the rumors of spreading Abundance on the station — but it’s bad enough that she wishes she had left Kafka in the hallway for someone else to deal with. It’s terrible information, positively radioactive.

“I’m not sure what you think I’d do with this,” Tingyun says innocently.

Because if she passes it on to the Commission, nothing here will be spared. Not the flashy casinos, not the third-generation family-run ramen stalls, not the politicians whipping up tourism campaigns in the hopes of attracting bored Luofu residents. Every particle will be ionized. All bodies will be burnt to ashes. An entire culture’s life and death rests in the palm of her hand. 

Kafka barks out a hoarse laugh. “You’re so adorable when you try to play it off. Don’t think I don’t see you.”

Tingyun ignores the suggestion in it with a smile, folding up the piece of paper. “We have trade contracts with them, plenty in fact. This is a complication that is outside the scope of my job description.”

“How tragic for you.” Kafka rolls her shoulders, wincing at the pain from her side. “What’s so terrifying about the Yaoshi’s gifts? Perhaps the Xianzhou simply misunderstood the terms and conditions. Perhaps they misled all of you.”

“Dangerous words. You should rest before I memorize them.”

Kafka shrugs, but not long after she shuts her eyes she falls asleep, that smug smile on her face even as she dreams. 

Tingyun sits up for hours, tapping intermittently on the phone screen, but the communication networks are still down each time she checks.

If she doesn’t report it and goes ahead with the new trade agreements, she is putting the Xianzhou Luofu at risk, with the chance of contaminated goods spilling into the biospheres and infecting people. She will watch her home in ruins because she got greedy.

If she reports it, everything around her will be destroyed, and all these people, none of them will be judged innocent by the Xianzhou standards, the Charioteers assembling to rain the Hunt’s fury down upon them. No one will be spared.

She lays down facing Kafka.

“Do you like tormenting me like this?” she whispers, and she swears she sees the corner of Kafka’s mouth twitch.

In the morning, Tingyun wakes up alone, blood stains on the cold sheets where Kafka slept. A handwritten note rests on the pillow next to her reading only I’ll make sure to torment you a little less next time, K. 

She imprints the curve of Kafka’s handwriting into her brain, pushing it deep into her memory, then she burns it.

The communications are back up, the promenade bustling with life again. As if yesterday never happened. The news mentions something vague about an assassination attempt being thwarted. The trade negotiations precede as normal, Tingyun handling them with such poise and elegance that the dinner afterward has everyone fawning over her as she regales them with sweet anecdotes.

It’s a shame what she does to them after she leaves.

A month later Jing Yuan descends upon the station, and by the time his army pulls out, there is nothing left but dust floating in space. He retreats to his chambers, back to his chess games and garden, and it’s just another year of history, all things considered. He has done this many times. She is just another cog in the Xianzhou machine, eternally seeking to root out the corruption.

It is deemed a victory against the Abundance's insidious reaches, officially, and Tingyun’s name doesn’t come within five lightyears of anything that happened, officially. 

Behind the scenes, in messages deleted after being read, Yukong wonders if perhaps she wants to explain how she came across the information. Tingyun pretends she forgot to reply for long enough that Yukong drops it. 

Her reputation as an amicassador remains pristine, even as she stays up late at night, feeling like her hands are crusted over with blood specks. She wakes up in the night thinking she can smell iron, but it’s just her, at home, alone.

Tingyun keeps tabs on the universe, and bit by bit she scrapes together news of Stellaron Hunters and their strange, seemingly erratic, disruptions to interstellar order. To the untrained eye, it is just a chaotic mess of not-quite attacks, not always — it’s more like a sleight of hand, a distraction waved to make people look the other way. Just like what happened on Matsu station before its fall.

She tries very hard not to think about that and mostly succeeds. It’s easier to track the path of the Stellaron Hunters, piecing together every little detail that makes its way to the news and working backward to what they did. To what they are doing. It takes up her free time more than anything else.

It gets to a point where she correctly guesses the next target not once, but three times. And she can’t do anything with that knowledge except sit with it. All targets are outside of Xianzhou interest. Even if she explained her theory and showed its correct application, it would not be pursued. More likely, she would be pulled into the machinations of the Divination Commission, which is even less enticing to her. 

It’s the fourth guess that has her intrigued. She can’t quite word how she does it, how she figures out what links to follow, what news to read, but it’s like an invisible thread of fate that tugs at her, guides her. It’s just so oddly precise this time that it feels like someone has sent her an invitation. For a date. 

In the vast landscape of communicating, there are large swaths of the map between people that can never be filled in, like the darkness between the stars — not quite empty, not quite measurable. She enjoys observing these empty spaces, these quiet pauses full of promise. People love being vague because it leaves enough openings to disavow what was hinted at if it falls on bad ears, and in case of the other party picking up on it, well, the games may commence. This vagueness is an art form. It is one she hones daily. And writing down the time, date, and place, she knows she is about to step into it.

It could go either way. That is what is so thrilling. Being able to play both hands without losing… Not even Tingyun can say no to such a temptation.

Before she leaves, she locks a letter in the safety deposit box at the back of her shop. It’s not quite a confession, but just in case… It would be good that someone at least finds out what happened to her. 

The places people chose to meet in tell a lot about who they are as a person, and Kafka’s choice of a casino-hotel-shopping-complex is interesting. It’s among the most luxurious in this end of the galaxy, requiring a minimum deposit to even land. It’s not for the faint of heart, the way it rips your wallet in two, and it’s the first time Tingyun has gone there not as an invited guest on someone else’s generosity.

It’s not that she is frugal, she just doesn’t like spending on pointless things. It has never been a seemly thing and any interstellar delegate who grows a reputation for luxury and extravagance has too many weaknesses painted on their back. It draws eyes and opens you up to being vain and easily spoiled. It’s better to project the air of it than truly being it.

Tingyun wanders between stores, taking her time to carefully pick out a pair of leather gloves made of the most expensive leather one can get not breaking trade embargos, as well as browsing through several high fashion stores, quizzing the poor staff on which collections might have made use of velvet lately. 

She is waiting for attentive eyes to find her, and after the fourth store, she can feel them boring into the back of her head. 

She unfolds the fan and fans herself, sighing about how exhausting it is trying to find the perfect velvet jacket to the concierge. He knows exactly how deep her bank account goes, of course. The cogs in his head turn as he calculates the value of helping her. She thanks him kindly as he promises to look into it, as if it was no big thing, but there’s a hurry in his steps that betrays the hunger. 

She retreats to the garden lounge, ordering a bespoke cocktail with blossom and lavender cordials, and sits down to wait.

Kafka shows up before her drink, which is quite endearing if one can call anything between them that. 

“We keep meeting in odd places,” Kafka says, sitting down next to Tingyun on the plush couch, enough distance between them that it’s safe. For now. 

“Like ships in the night,” Tingyun replies, resting her chin in her hand. “What a strange coincidence, truly.”

“Does it hurt too much to say you accepted my invitation?” 

Tingyun beams at the waiter who brings her drink but leaves it untouched. “It’s a dangerous business, tracking people such as you. I would not want people getting the wrong ideas.”

“And yet here you are. Have I been on your mind that much?”

Yes, Tingyun wants to say, but she has to wrap that word up in a hundred layers just so she can bear even thinking it. 

“It’s more of a curiosity, and besides, we have an imbalance in the ledger to correct.”

“I heard of what happened to the space station.”

Tingyun shifts her face, rearranging it into a soft smile. “Is there a need to rehash such old unpleasantries? All I wish for is to even the score.”

She slides the carefully packaged leather gloves across the table with both hands.

“I hope you do not think it presumptuous of me, but I would hate to watch you stain your hands with undue dirty business.”

Kafka laughs, changing out of her old ones and into the new pair, flexing her fingers in the leather. “How kind of you. And your hands? Still as clean as ever?”

“I had a manicure done today,” she says, holding her right hand out so Kafka can admire the glossy sheen on her nails, the trimmed cuticles and moisturized skin.

The nightmares that forced her to wash her hands raw have almost stopped completely. She is perfectly put together and healed, despite that poisoned gift Kafka put in her hands with a smile.

“You picked a polish that matches my gloves,” Kafka remarks, a smug smile gracing her lips. 

“It must have been on my mind.”

“Very cute. Maybe you could be my good luck charm tonight, I had plans to get a whiskey and gamble regardless of you showing up.”

Tingyun follows Kafka to the card tables, joining in on her game once a spot clears. 

It’s fascinating observing Kafka chipping at the others, through no fault of theirs — she is just so cool and distant as if the game does not matter to her at all. Which is terrifying to everyone else at the table — Tingyun spots two of them sweating profusely, trying to stay calm, but there is no pattern to Kafka at all. 

One by one, everyone else drops out, sauntering away from the table, too unnerved to even stay and watch as it’s down to just the two of them. It’s practically private. 

Tingyun isn’t playing to win. She has only raised as much as she is willing to lose, and her liquidity isn’t an issue anymore. It’s not for fun, either — it’s something deeper, far more personal. And better left undefined, lest it ruins the magic. 

“I’ve been thinking about you,” Kafka says, not even looking at the cards as they’re dealt to her. “I have been trying to figure you out.”

“Surely, there is nothing to think about there, I am just a humble amicassador during work hours, and outside of that, I get to be me.”

“Do you want to know what my guess is? You’re a spy.”

Tingyun giggles, shaking her head. “Scandalous accusation. Besides, that would be such a headache with my work. I do not have the mindset for such things.”

“Cute.” Kafka taps the cards thoughtfully. “I’m calling.”

“Fold,” Tingyun says, feeling only a slight sting as the pot shifts over to Kafka.

“You’ve played a good game, Tingyun. But cards on the table: you like it.”

Tingyun looks up at her with a wicked smile. There’s no use playing denial. Kafka has wiped her clean out.

“This table’s cold,” Tingyun says. “I think I’m going to try my luck in the garden.”

Botanical gardens on other worlds are deemed very dangerous things according to the Luofu travel handbook: one stray seed and a planet can be overwhelmed. One invasive species and it can knock an entire ecosystem out of balance. The Xianzhou fleet has not hesitated to impose strict regulations on not only imports, but also where its citizens may go while traveling. 

It had not been in Tingyun’s nature to break rules before Kafka crossed her path. Not this flagrantly, anyway. What a terrible influence she had.

“You say such scandalous things,” Tingyun says as Kafka trails behind her. “Are you hoping to see me flinch?”

“A little reaction would be fun,” Kafka says. “Did you think I gave you that lead just as a gift? I wanted to see what you would do as well. I wanted to know if you were what I thought you were.”

“Was it true?”

Kafka shrugs, grinning. “Hardly matters now, does it?”

Tingyun breathes in deeply. She will not descend into that pit, she will trust in the process, she must — the Six Charioteers must have done their due diligence, they must have found sufficient evidence to pursue the eradication they did, anything else is heretical to even put into thought. Anything else would destroy her to think about.

And Kafka just keeps putting these cruel seedlings into her head like it’s fun to watch her spiral.

“You are heartless.” She folds the accusation under a wrapping of sweetness, but there is a blooming disgust lacing her lips.

“Does it bother you that much to be accused of spying? It just evens the playing field. You have a hold on me, I have a hold on you. It’s very mutual.”

“But hardly beneficial,” Tingyun sighs. “I’m but a humble amicassador. A false accusation such as that would ruin me. How can I be sure of your trustworthiness?”

Kafka slides closer to Tingyun, their shoulders touching. “Have I ever truly ruined anything for you? Or have I laid out the board in your favor?”

Perhaps that is even worse.

Tingyun stands still as Kafka leans closer, her breaths growing shallow as Kafka’s lips graze over her bare shoulders.

Kafka isn’t wrong, that’s the worst of it.

The job role description for an amicassador is vague for a reason and pleasant in the mouth for the same one. It’s not spying, not really. It’s just filing away little tidbits lured out of people, one by one, until they form a picture clear enough for the Six Charioteers to act on.

“You are ruining me,” Tingyun whispers, hearing Kafka chuckle as she continues kissing a path across her shoulder to her collarbone, lips soft and breath hot.

Tingyun never set out to be a spy. It came to her more like an accident, a quirk of the job or a perk, who was to say. But she was a good people reader, always honing, always adapting. 

Yukong tapped it first, and then it slipped to Jing Yuan, no doubt intentionally. She built trust like a home and moved far-flung delegates into it, treating them to tea and pleasant conversation that left them soft and unguarded. Most of them were harmless. Some weren’t. And everyone had a tongue that could be loosened, one way or another. Ask the right question, smile demurely, throw out a vaguely scandalous, perhaps even heretical, statement and see who hooks on it. 

Everyone on the Luofu serves, in their own way. This was hers. 

She had always played it cool, always covered her tracks. Traveling in a large delegation helped. Diffusing her trail, making sure others heard conversations. 

The fact that Kafka had honed on it was a problem, bigger than anything else. Whatever advantage she had tonight would be gone the moment they parted, but Kafka’s rested like an ace up her sleeve, a good trade in any prison.

Kafka’s lips are on her neck, sucking and biting, Tingyun shuddering from the intensity of the touch. For so long she has dreamt of this very moment and now it’s steeped in the mess Kafka has put them both in. 

Yukong had instructed her long ago on what to do if she became compromised. A long list, but simple — eliminate all suspicions without implicating herself.

Kafka very tenderly hooks her fingers under Tingyun’s jawbone and tilts her head up as her mouth moves up over her chin, but as their lips are about to touch she stops, eyes widening.

“Ah, that look in your eyes. You’re thinking about killing me.”

Tingyun swallows, lips pursed.

“Go on. How were you thinking about doing it? I’m endlessly curious.” Tingyun keeps silent, Kafka being so close to her that she can’t sort her thoughts out. “You don’t seem the killing kind, which makes it all the more fun. Poison is problematic. Few can’t be traced, and no one likes the messiness. Besides, there are enough witnesses here tonight that they can put you and me together. What would people say if the sweet amicassador was caught in a scandal like that?”

“Do you want to see me suffer? Is that it?”

“I could do worse if I wanted that. You know that, deep down.”

She has an inkling.

“I don’t think you like choking,” Kafka says, continuing to voice her deranged thoughts. “Too personal. You don’t like to let them fester in you like that, it gets to your head too easily. Shame. You don’t know the joys of it, because no one has taught you…”

Tingyun looks down at Kafka’s lips. What would be the personal cost of silencing her? What would it do to her? 

Kafka’s eyes widen. “You don’t know, do you? You have no idea how to do it. You don’t know how to be a killer.”

Yukong told her she wouldn’t have to kill. That had been her promise, long ago, holding Tingyun’s soft hands in her rough ones — rough from years being a mechanic, rough from the crash she suffered through, how she pulled herself out of the burning wreckage and melted her fingertips on the heated metal hull. And Tingyun, so soft, always moisturized and manicured, not a stray fleck of skin, not a scratch on her knuckles. You won’t have to kill. I promise you that. And it was true. She had never done it with her own hands. 

But all the intel, all the clues she pieced together. It wasn’t that clean. Fine, she wasn’t a murderer. But she prepared the scene.

“You are not the one who pulls the trigger. How do you live with yourself? It’s so different to do it. To stare down the barrel of a gun as their eyes contract to nothing. It’s like the deepest pit of the universe has found a way into them. Have you ever seen a person as their life flashes before their eyes? Aeons don’t come close to rapture like that.”

“How can you be so glib about this?” Tingyun says, voice low, tinged with desire from the heated kisses, even as she is drowning in what must be done. 

“Because if you’re going to kill, you have to make it count. You have to make it matter.” Kafka’s eyes are wide open, wild, and she reaches into her coat, presenting Tingyun with her pistol. “Do you want to try it on me?”

Tingyun holds the gun in her open palms. It’s cold and hard in her hands.

“Let me show you.” Kafka positions it in her hands, closing her fingers around the weapon. “Here. Safety.” She flicks it off, her breathing growing heavy.

“Kafka…” Tingyun says her name like she might be calling for a lover leaving her, she knows this, and it’s terribly vulnerable of her. 

Kafka slides her hands down Tingyun’s body, getting down on her knees in front of her. She grips Tingyun’s delicate wrists and positions her hands so the gun is aimed right at Kafka’s forehead.

“Now there’s only you between me and death.”

Power comes in so many forms, shaped differently. Tingyun is used to the soft power of suggestion, of beauty, of the way her soft looks and tender smiles can make someone trip over themselves to please her. Beauty can make a fool forget. Beauty can make the wisest merchant in the room act unwise. 

This is a different kind of power. It feels gruesome in her hands, all hard and heavy. She has eschewed any display of power like this her entire life because it’s crude, it lacks subtlety and deft touch, it’s just not beautiful. 

But there is something intoxicatingly beautiful about Kafka on her knees like this. It twists the scene, it warps her thoughts.

“You could end all your problems, right here, right now. Isn’t that tempting? Isn’t that just perfect?”

Her life used to be so clean and simple before Kafka crashed her way into it. She slept well, she did her job, she didn’t worry her conscience with questions that Kafka keep plucking at with her sharp fingernails as if they were fabric for the fraying. 

Kafka drags the gun down the ridge of her nose, grinning madly. 

“Have you ever seen someone lose half their face to a gunshot wound?” she asks, her eyes unnervingly open and focused. “It’s gruesome. It’s disgusting. Bone, skin, muscles, all torn apart. It’s nothing but a humiliating destruction of your person. Of anything recognizable about you. No one would be able to know who I was.”

“Kafka…” Her voice is betraying her. She doesn’t know if she’s pleading or warning. She doesn’t know how much pressure it takes to pull the trigger. She’s drowning, she’s being pulled deeper underwater, and Kafka is laughing.

Tingyun shoves the barrel of the gun into Kafka’s mouth, hitting the molars hard with the tip of it. Kafka chokes a little on it, coughing, her soft lips forming a surprised o around the hard intrusion.

“Stop talking,” Tingyun says, breathing hard and fast. “Just stop trying to make me into something like you.”

Her words clearly ignite something in Kafka, who grabs Tingyun’s wrists and pulls herself down further on the gun, the long barrel going deep, hitting the back of her throat. She gags, swallows, blinking away the tear response. Her lips just barely nudge across Tingyun’s knuckles holding the trigger as she sucks on the pistol, drool dripping from the sides of her mouth.

Tingyun feels insane. She laughs, there are tears in her eyes, she can’t do anything but watch as Kafka bobs her head on the gun, pushing it as deep as she can take it. Tingyun can feel the small vibrations of her throat traveling up the barrel, can feel the way the front of it scrapes against her teeth as she angles the tip into her cheek, the hard bulge poking at the soft flesh looking so wrong, so depraved.

So beautiful.

Kafka holds it like that for a long while, time slipping away from them. She drools, long wet strings dripping down over her chin, turning her white shirt see-through when it falls down on her chest. Tingyun could watch it for hours, her chest rising hard with her jagged breaths, feeling a tight mess of emotions swirling inside of her.

She wants to harm Kafka, a little, she does. And she wants to keep her alive, she wants the torment, she wants to torment, she wants the games to continue and she needs them to end. 

She flicks the safety back in position and eases her grip on the gun, terrified still of the power it holds, and pulls it out of Kafka’s mouth to a loud, disappointed cough.

“I knew you were soft,” Kafka says, not derisively, but rather as if she’s… Soft. Fond. Falling.

Tingyun could say the same. 

She falls to her knees in front of Kafka, cupping her face and kissing her on the mouth. It’s a furious and insane kiss, with teeth, her sharp incisors cutting Kafka’s lip. She bites, she scratches, she wants Kafka to choke on the laugh that’s spilling out from her traitorous and dangerous lips. She wants to etch her bitemarks into her skin and make sure she knows that her beauty is dangerous too, that she can match her step for step.

When she breaks the kiss apart she stands up again, brushing her skirt off. Kafka tries to grab at her, pull her down, but Tingyun grabs her chin and tilts Kafka’s face upwards. 

“Don’t betray me,” she says, using the same soft voice she’d apply to a buckling negotiator.

“Or else?”

Tingyun slaps Kafka’s cheek while holding her head in place, and the sting of it transforms Kafka’s face. She goes through the stages of shock, pain and then the unfurling pleasure, it’s sickening to see. She’s not normal. She’s not sane. She’s a terrible danger that threatens to undo everything about Tingyun’s comfortable and cushy life.

“If you put a gun in my hands again, I will not hesitate.” She thinks it’s a bluff. She hopes it is. It’s so hard knowing herself near Kafka.

“Tempting me?” Kafka asks, defiant grin on her face. 

Tingyun strokes the back of her hand over the impact site of her slap, feeling the red-hot burning skin against hers.

“It’s important to know to quit while you’re ahead.”

“Shame, I never learned. Teach me?”

Tingyun pinches Kafka’s bottom lip between two sharp nails, pulling it down. Kafka opens her mouth in surprise and Tingyun spits into it, feeling ashamed of herself, of what is rising in her, she’s all emotion and instinct and she wants to claw something out of Kafka, something she can only glimpse as a terrifying promise in her.

Kafka swallows, the loud noise sending a shiver down Tingyun’s spine. 

She turns on her heel and leaves, taking her own advice. She’s close to breaking into a sprint, unable to catch her breath, her head a maze of thoughts. Want and need are impossible to peel apart. 

She doesn’t look back. She checks out early, tipping the concierge generously for his efforts. All the while she is waiting for her off-world transport, she feels a pair of eyes digging into her back, and she resists the temptation with every fiber of her being, feeling herself breaking apart in the effort. 

When she comes home to the Luofu and after she undergoes thorough decontamination processes, she rushes to the closed store to burn the letter, feverish with the secrets she now must carry to her grave.

Her dreams become haunted by something else in the aftermath. Kafka, her horrid mouth, her vicious smile. Someone far worse, far more dangerous, if only because Tingyun doesn’t know how far she might sink as Kafka drags her deep under.