Warning: Canon-Typical Violence, POV Second Person, reflection on ep 7 - ep 10 from Yut-Lung's POV, Spoilers up to ep 10, Angst, Denial, Tears

You're not sure if you understand him. He is only a fool, in the beginning, a tool to be used to accomplish your goals - your brothers' goals - and then to be tossed away.

His struggle is amusing to watch, in the very least, and his sentiments, useable to manipulate. There is a reason why you don't have anything or anyone, after all, - not after your mother, because she is meant to be avenged -, because you can't have them tying you down.

Shorter has someone, a sister who raised him after their parents' deaths and who he has left unprotected in New York, and that is his downfall.

You don't feel sorry for taking advantage, for using him, because that is his fate, his mistake, in being weak.

A blood history is inevitable when you are the ruling clan, you have said so yourself.

Yet.

And yet you feel something as he hovers over your chair, the tip of his knife held against your neck, desire to kill you so palpable it is thick in the air, and yet his arm trembles with the strength of his restraint.

For his sister, his family.

His face twists as you mention her, pain so visible on his face even with his shades hiding his eyes, and you spare a moment to wonder how he would look with them off, and that is the only reason he manages to grab your neck and toss you - twice, now.

Twice, he has grabbed you and slammed you against the nearest surface, the wall last time and the bed this time. His knife follows and stabs through your hair and into the bed, the only part of you that he dares harm in rebellion lest his sister's safety be jeopardized, and you feel no fear but merely a stirring of curiosity as you gaze up at him to await his next move.

His eyes are lined with tears. His shades has fallen off.

"I used to respect you guys," he says, looking at you with the broken gaze of a child whose hero-worship shattered.

You think you understand why Shorter wears his shades now. His gaze is too expressive, gives too much away, and you almost want to look away, except you don't.

He talks about how his parents told him that the Lees protect the Chinese and help them survive, his trust in them because of that, and you don't need to say, They're wrong, because he knows that now, has learned that the hard way just like you and your mother had.

The plop of tear that lands on your cheek is warm, but the eyes that it has fallen from are nearly poisonous.

"You're the maggots sucking living blood out of others," he says, and that doesn't hurt because you already know that. He slots his shades in place, hides his eyes, his self, spits out, "You're nothing but a venomous snake!" and your face shutters as he slams the door behind him.

Your face feels wet long after he leaves.

You keep his knife.

You laugh at his pain, his struggle with betraying his friends, his desperate attempts to keep the Japanese boy safe, because the only other option is to sympathize with him, and you cannot - will not - do that.

You wonder if he will survive this ordeal, and admit to yourself the probability is slim.

You put that out of your mind, concentrate on your own plan, and something like horror blossom in you when you witness the demonstration of Banana Fish in Golzine's basement.

You do not look at the fallen body of Shorter Wong, the tears rolling down his face just like last time when he knelt over you and called you a venomous snake, or the clean wound from the bullet that has pierced through his heart.

Ash Lynx is a good shot.

He is also crying, calling Shorter's name, but he won't be replying, not anymore.

Shorter Wong is dead.

You watch long enough to see them take Shorter's body down towards the lab, and then slip back into your own room before you are discovered.

You give Ash the key because you need a distraction for your own plan and it wouldn't hurt to make him think he owes you ("You'll regret ever showing me mercy. I'll kill you someday", he says, and there goes your excuse crumbling away like sand), slips into the lab to steal Banana Fish, and unwittingly halt when you recognize Shorter's mutilated body.

You stare at the mess they have made of him, unable to move just like when Shorter was crying above you.

They have drilled through his skull and removed anything they didn't need to get to the brain. His face is gone, bone structure above the cheekbone crushed to make way for their sick experiment, and blood seeps out of the hollow that is all that they left of his upper skull.

His expressive eyes are gone. You can't even close them for him to rest in peace.

A blood history is inevitable when you are the ruling clan, you remind yourself, and don't think about how you have essentially driven him right into Golzine's hands and into his horrific experiment. You have known that Shorter wouldn't let his friend go easily, and now he died for it.

"Is that Banana Fish?" you have asked when you finally tear yourself away from the examination table and find Abraham Dawson scurrying like a rat, and then inevitably, "It's you who did that to Shorter's body, isn't it?"

Dawson's frightened gasp is all the admission you need, and the sudden thought of He has to die is the clearest decision you have made since this entire mess with Ash Lynx and Golzine has started.

You slip your needle out of your hair, mention Ash because you have no reason to bring up Shorter otherwise, and your heart and smile are full of ice as you mock, "How funny. You made a drug of death, and now you're scared of dying?"

You leave Dawson for Ash because it doesn't hurt to try to curry his favor again, even if Ash didn't take it so well before, and because Dawson sickens you for dirtying your art of drug and poison.

It isn't revenge, because otherwise, that would mean Shorter has meant something to you.

You still feel something like satisfaction in your heart when the car that Golzine gifted Ash for his sixteenth birthday blazes out of the mansion, leaving a blast of fire and destruction in its wake.

Shorter Wong is no more, you think, and for the first and last time since your mother's death, your heart twinge.

Months later, you admit to yourself that that might have been why you brought Soo-Ling Sing with you. He looks up to Shorter and in Sing, you can see a bit of Shorter.

His heart, his brashness, his love.

When you have gained power, you order Shorter's sister not to be touched. As long as she is in Chinatown, no harm would ever befall her.

It isn't reparation, because to those left behind, nothing can make up for the loss of their loved one.

Sometimes, you would wake in the middle of the night with Shorter's plea of Kill me echoing in your ears.

Sometimes, you would take out Shorter's knife and think you can still feel the warmth of his tears on your face.

So I was watching Banana Fish and besides dying from dehydration from crying too much, what I noticed and found interesting was Yut-Lung's actions during those episodes. I'll be honest, I read the manga so I remember Yut-Lung as this major interesting but ultimately asshole character. When watching the anime, however, I realized that he - for the lack of better words - wasn't always like that. His personality is much more twisted at the end, while in the beginning, he still shows signs of caring and having a heart.

Annnd, that's how this fic was born, the idea that maybe Yut-Lung cared and was affected more by Shorter's death than what he outwardly showed or was even willing to admit to himself. (Btw, if any dialogue seems familiar, it's because I took it directly out of the anime.)

With that said, thanks for reading!