Meliora - Extricate - 35

[lady_mab]

Jun Zhou

The last text message from either Glen or Zoné was sent ten minutes ago, saying they had just reached the park and were making their way towards our meeting spot. The park isn't that big. They should have made it by now, so I'm starting to get a little nervous as minute eleven ticks by without an update.

I'm in the middle of composing a text when I hear someone calling to me. "Jun!"

Glen’s pace picks up as soon as we make eye contact. He's alone, and I wonder if I should be worried.

"Where is Zoné? I thought the two of you were coming together?"

An expression I can't quite figure out settles in behind his eyes and he points back over his shoulder. "We ran into someone he apparently knows? He told me to go on ahead." He hesitates a beat then, slowly, asks, "Should we go back...?"

Nervousness and caution war against the urge to just have faith in Zoné. I know he'll join us soon, and I'll know he'll explain.

He promised that he'll explain.

So instead I shake my head and smile. "No, we will wait."

Glen relaxes and returns my smile with one of his own. He gives me an appraising once over. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired," I confess, and this gets him to laugh. "A little sore, but..." I shrug and I hold out my arms towards him. "I am sorry for scaring you."

His eyes go wide for a second. Just when I think I'm going to have to clarify, the rest of the tension eases from his posture and he stoops down to wrap his arms around my waist and hoist me up in a hug.

My feet nearly leave the ground, and a burst of laughter escapes me in surprise. I loop one arm around his neck, the other clinging to his shoulder to keep me steady.

"I was really worried. But I'm glad you're okay." He pulls back and his hands shift to my shoulders. The smile is replaced with a playful but critical look. "You are okay, aren't you?"

"I am now," I say, and he squeezes my shoulders in response.

Zoné ambles up to us with a frown and a bag of roasted chestnuts. He doesn't say anything, just holds out the bag between us.

Glen shifts a questioning look from me to Zoné. "Who was that?"

"That asshole," Zoné mumbles, punctuating the pause with a chestnut cracked between his teeth, "was my brother."

We both freeze, though I'm sure for completely different reasons.

Glen, who had been in the process of reaching for a chestnut, lets his hand drop back to his side. "You have a brother?" The confusion hasn't left his expression, and when he turns to me, it only grows wilder when he notices that I'm not having the same reaction. "You knew?"

"Not because I told her, if that's what you're getting at." Zoné sighs and scrubs a hand back through his hair. "We... She found out on her own. We ran into his team back at the beginning of the game."

Rocking back on his heels, Glen gives a low whistle and shakes his head. "So why is it that the Darcy siblings are trying to keep their situation hush-hush and you're here running around with your brother as a fellow Participant?"

Frustration and annoyance flashes over Zoné's face, and I reach out to touch the crook of his elbow before he can react. It takes several seconds before he can calm himself down. "He stopped being my brother a long time ago."

"I don't.... think I understand."

Zoné shakes his head and then gestures vaguely in the direction of a few tables. "Okay, guess I'll start with the explanations."

We move to the picnic benches, dusting off fallen leaves and downy feathers before taking our seats. Glen and I sit on one side, while Zoné slouches across the side opposite. The bag of chestnuts rests between us.

"Right. So. First off... Jun, it's good to see you." Zoné does a rough impression of sounding normal, keeping his head propped up with one hand. "How are you feeling?"

I purse my lips, but we both know that he won't be able to keep up the conversational detour for long. "Better, I guess. How is your head?"

He attempts for a smirk but it doesn't quite make it all the way. "Same as always. Thick and completely undaunted."

A snort escapes me. My hands fiddle awkwardly, stiffly, on the table. "My fingers are not working very well. Hard to use a knife for a long time. Or grip anything, really."

Zoné's expression is pained, still struggling with leftover guilt from the event.

Glen, however, reaches out to press the tips of his fingers against the inside of my wrist. I obey the touch, flipping my hand to be palm up. My fingers don't rest quite right, curling up slightly from the table top, and it's uncomfortable to keep them that way for long.

It terrifies me more than I try to let on.

"What happened?" Glen urges. "You promised you would tell me."

Zoné and I do our best to recount the events of that night from when we got off the bus to when he gets knocked unconscious and I'm dragged away.

That's when my memory goes hazy. I repeat what I told my uncle in a tiny, shaky voice. I rub my forearm at the memory of the wounds, still visible two weeks later. I keep them wrapped in gauze beneath my sweater. The bandages are fine enough without an additional level of cover, but I can't stand to see the marks.

Zoné chimes back in at this point to explain how he found me: Catoir.

In an equally tiny voice, Zoné tells the story of how he came to be in Eminence. About how, five years ago, his brother ran away from home and no one in the family seemed to care. Two years later, Zoné took it upon himself to find him.

He picked up a trail in Eminence, but it went cold shortly after he arrived. Figuring that Catoir had simply left and there was nothing more for it, Zoné decided to settle down and finish school. He would resume his search when he had better resources.

Of course, that brought him to Meliora. That brought him to Lionel's list, to the name Fletcher Oswin that niggled at the back of his mind until he remembered, belatedly, it was a name from childhood games of pretend.

In the silence that follows, I watch Zoné struggle to maintain his composure. Running into Catoir must have been hard enough on him, but there is something else behind his distress.

So instead I take my turn to explain.

"Uncle Bao is well connected. In many ways, to many people. He owns a restaurant that is loved by those who claim ancestry from China, and becomes a space for them to meet and catch up and practice old traditions." I pick at a bit of a fiber from one of the chestnuts that has escaped to the table surface.

I tell them about how I asked Uncle Bao to look into Meliora for me -- and how he encouraged me to join. I didn't decide to Participate because I wanted out.

I decided to Participate because I knew others needed answers.

"Connections mean many things to many different people," I try to explain, though the concept I am aiming for does not come easily to me in English. "To people who are not related but become a family, it means that they would do anything to ensure that they are united against difficulties. For me, that meant learning what I could for others. For my uncle, it means managing those connections and telling them when to act."

"So... let me get this straight," Glen says after a lengthy pause. "Your uncle... runs a mob?"

I choke on a sound that might be a laugh. "He knows some people who do things that are not... above bar. And they do those things if he asks."

"Holy shit," Zoné whispers. "Jun, you're the niece of a mob boss."

"No! I am not!" I laugh despite myself, and that seems to help ease the tension around our table. "Please do not go telling people that." I reach out and take one of their hands in each of mine. "The point is! ALICE might think that either of us are the one cheating, but we have an entire network. There are people who will support us, even if ALICE will not, okay?"

The boys exchange looks, and there is a degree of seriousness in that instant. But then Zoné grins and casts me a sideways glance and asks, "So, do you have a tattoo that shows you're part of a gang, or--" and the moment is ruined and all three of us start laughing.

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