It was in the bathroom in the midst of an exceptionally bad date that Hana Song first encountered a woman who was, as far as she was concerned, a wholly different species.
She had ducked into the washroom of the upscale Parisian restaurant to try to formulate a game plan for the rest of the evening. It was her first date with this particular fellow, and so far it had blown. Completely. Sucked major ass. Gag me with a spoon awful.
Yet, Hana had said nothing. The closest she had come to voicing her discomfort had been a faint frown and a "That's not very nice" before fleeing to the restroom. Without her headset on, her controller in hand, a screen between her and the enemy…without , the thought of confrontation made Hana want to vomit. Each time she gathered herself to speak up, anxiety exploded in her gut and scorched her throat until no sound would come out.
Come on, woman up, Song, she tried to tell herself, gripping the edges of the sink. She had three options as she saw it:
Go back out, finish the date with pained smiles and awkward titters and never answer his calls again,
March back out, tell him each and everything he'd done that night that made her skin crawl and then stiff him with the bill for dinner, or
Sneak out the back door like the coward she felt like and have someone tell him she died next time he texted her.
She was gonna do it. She was gonna go back out and tell him off and boogie out the door like the kick-ass international gaming sensation that she was.
Hana's stomach had curled itself into so many knots she might just duck into that stall for a moment first though—
Oh, who was she kidding? Not herself. If she went back out there, she was going to quietly take her seat and sit through dinner and maybe at the very end, she'd tell him she wasn't really interested in meeting again. Polite, placating, evasive. was a tank-type hero. She played offense. She brought in the glory. Hana? Hana played defense. Hana used avoidance tactics. Hana, at best, might manage a sneak mission.
There was only one other woman in the room with her: a tall, spidery kind of woman who had a cold, gothic beauty that made her look like she had clawed her way out of a Romantic novel or Victorian tragedy. She was fixing her lipstick in the mirror, a deep red that combined with her glossy black hair to make Hana think vampire?
As she tried to steady her breathing, she threw repetitive glances over at this woman, in her long, sleek black dress, and heels that totaled her height up to something over six foot. The kind of woman that exuded the "don't even look at me" vibe. Hana compromised by only looking out of the corners of her eyes.
Maybe Hana could channel that kind of vibe too. She told herself to take deep breaths. Calm down. Quiet the tilt-a-whirl otherwise known as her stomach. She was reacting completely disproportionately and needed to get herself together and make sure she was not subject to another several hours of this night.
If only anxiety could be so easily reasoned away.
The young woman in the hanbok-inspired dress at the sink beside her was distracting Amélie from her failed efforts to banish the past from her mind. She had taken refuge in the restroom when the restaurant became too much—the clinking of forks on plates, the waiters silently swaying from table to table, the view of a gorgeous Parisian avenue from her seat.
Coming here, she had thought, was an important step. And she had been so sure she was ready: her nerves steeled, her mind alert, her scars healed. But the memories were pushing at the backs of her eyes, scratching the sides of her brain, playing dodgeball in her chest. Deep breaths, deep, slow breaths, and she could calm them.
No matter what she did though, she had to face a terrible truth: When she went back out to the table, it would still be empty. Gérard would not be waiting there for her with a soft smile, and eyes just for her. They would not playfully steal bites from each other's plates, and she would not feel the instep of his foot against her toes beneath the table. The table would be unoccupied. She would finish her dinner in silence. And she would go home, where the quiet of her apartment would pick apart her mind until the morning.
Six years. She had thought six years was enough. Four was not. She had tried at the four-year mark, and broken down sobbing in the car when she pulled up to their traditional anniversary restaurant (which required a yearly jaunt to Paris), and had to go home.
Think of the good things, she told herself. Don't dwell on the grief, but the joy. It was difficult, though. Gérard had softened Amélie, made her a better person. Without him, she couldn't remember how to be gentle.
Shaking the thoughts clinging to her like burrs to a winter coat, she attempted to resume fixing her make-up, but she could see the big, dark eyes of the woman beside her continue to flick over in her direction. Amélie had been vaguely aware of her staring into the mirror as if into an abyss, trembling hands on the porcelain of the sink. But this girl was not her business, not her problem, and was she going to keep staring the whole time Amélie was in here?
Sharply, she looked over at the other woman, staring her down for an explanation, a greeting—whatever this quivering mess had to say to her. It took two tries to get a response: the first in French, the second in English.
"Well?" she prompted her. "Can I help you?"
"Oh, er, I—" Suddenly confronted, Hana stammered trying to respond. "Sorry, I'm just…having a crappy date rightnow," she explained, flexing her right hand open and closed. "Not really looking forward to going back out there." She let out a nervous, girlish laugh.
"…pity." The Frenchwoman paused so long, nailing Hana to the floor with her icy gaze that she felt suitably chastised, and thought perhaps the woman meant not to respond at all. After she had expressed her one word, she went back to appraising her eyeliner in the mirror.
"Yeah I've uh, been thinking about ducking out the back door, actually," Hana rambled on. The woman briefly closed her eyes and then resumed her study. "But I guess I better not keep him waiting."
"Just block his number after this," the woman intoned without turning. "Don't bother with him anymore."
"I will, I just…"
"Don't want to see him again at all?" she guessed, looking over at Hana again. "That bad?" Hana rubbed her arm and nodded.
"It's gonna be a flop of a night," she said. "And he's been a real dick."
"Tell him that," the woman advised. Hana was silent. The woman turned away again, nose wrinkled in disgust.
"Are you here alone?" Hana asked, uncertain why her mouth seemed to think trying to strike up a feeling of amity with this woman was going to help her.
"…yes," said the vampire woman after an inordinate pause, her hand stilling in the re-application of her blush. Hana was quiet, taking a few breaths to fill herself with oxygen and motivation, and then blurted out:
"Could you help me?"
"Help you?" the femme fatale asked, peering at Hana in a way that made her want to sink into the floor. It was high school all over again, and this woman was one of those beautiful girls with cute accessories and a wicked tongue that Hana avoided like blue turtle shells. "What is it exactly you want me to do?"
"Um…" Hana wasn't actually sure, only that she'd feel more confident with this chick on her side. "Never mind. Sorry. I should go, I've bothered you enough."
Amélie looked at the pathetic scene before her, the girl clutching her skirt, her eye make-up a mess from rubbing them, most likely, eyes the size of saucers at the idea of going back outside.
Come on Amélie, Gérard whispered in her ear. Have a bit of pity for the poor thing.
Amélie sighed.
"Fix your eye make-up," she said.
"Huh?"
"Your eye make-up, it's a mess."
"Oh, shit." The young woman studied herself in the mirror and seemed to notice for the first time what all her worrying had done to her eyeshadow. "I'm just taking it off." She grabbed a towelette, moistened it at the sink, and wiped her peachy eyeshadow off on it.
"Come with me, then," Amélie told her when she was done soiling one of the restaurant's towels. The other woman promptly took two steps forward, like a puppy coming to heel. "When we go out," Amélie instructed her, "you cannot have that startled deer look. You will look calm and confident, as if this is exactly what you planned."
The woman swallowed and nodded. "I can do that."
"Good. Then let's go."
Despite the older woman's instructions, Hana couldn't bring herself to lift her face—she just knew she'd catch the eye of her date and have to leg it out the kitchen. But she breathed deep and stayed calm, keeping her eyes fixed on the back of her rescuer's high heels. She hoped she managed 'demure' and not 'about to burst into anxious tears'.
The woman who was made of some magical rock and iron—not human flesh and blood like Hana—had a prime seat. Her table sat before a massive French window overlooking one of the boulevards lined with neatly-trimmed trees and quaint old stoops. A postcard image, Hana was sure.
"Can you see him from here?" the woman of steel asked, looking down at her cellphone.
"No, but I think he can see us," Hana muttered, looking at the candle flame fluttering between them. The other woman made some quiet signal and a waiter materialized beside the table.
"Could you bring a menu for Mademoiselle…?"
"Song," Hana said quickly. "Hana Song."
"Mademoiselle Song?"
"I should ask your name too, huh?" Hana said with a sheepish smile as the waiter departed.
"It's Amélie," she said, with the flowing French accent and sex appeal underscore. "Amélie Lacroix." She even sounded like a super spy or something exciting. The waiter returned and handed Hana a menu with no prices listed anywhere.
"Um…"
"Order whatever you want," Amélie said, looking at her phone again. "I owe the universe some generosity tonight."
Hana made her choice, but as the waiter made a note of it, Amelia reached out her hand to take the menu. Whatever she looked at there Hana couldn't say, but she told the waiter: "Bring her a glass of '45 pinot grigio with that." It was only after she had handed the menu off that she asked Hana, "Do you drink wine?"
"Not often, but I don't mind trying something new," Hana replied promptly, giving a slightly apologetic wave with her hand.
By this point, her date had noticed the women's subterfuge, a fact Hana discerned by his sudden appearance at their table, and the hand he put down on it.
"Hana, what the hell's going on?" he asked.
"Oh, I, uh…" Hana's face flushed a florescent red, and she stumbled over an excuse she hadn't prepared. "This is, uh, Amélie and…"
"Do you mind?" Amélie asked, sounding two parts polite, one part vaguely annoyed. "I'm sorry, monsieur, Hana is a dear old friend of mine and when I ran into her in the bathroom I had to steal her away."
"Hana, what the hell?" her date asked.
"Sorry, Rich, I just—"
"Is she kidnapping you or something?"
"No, it's just that—"
"Or are you just trying to get a free meal off me and then bail? If you weren't interested you could have said so before I brought you over here!"
"Hana doesn't want to see you," Amelia broke in, all pretense of cool civility gone. "You're rude and uncouth and your date is over. Goodbye, monsieur."
"Hana, what the fuck?" Hana drew in a deep breath and clenched her jaw.
"Amélie's right. We're done." Rich's hand curled up on the table and Amélie spoke again.
"Monsieur, if you don't leave us now, I will call the staff," Amélie said. She lifted her amber-shaded eyes up to Rich's face, utterly unfazed by his anger. "Or I will deal with you myself." Rich looked at her, six foot-something of lean muscle and French contempt, and snorted.
"Yeah, whatever. You're not even that hot." He spat the last defense of a fleeing mongrel as he walked away from their table.
Hana let out the longest sigh she'd ever held in.
"Can I have a sip of your wine?" she asked weakly. Amélie passed it over, and Hana drained half of it in one go, to Amélie's mute horror. It took Hana several minutes to recover herself, while Amélie plied her with polite questions at regular intervals to keep her from passing out into a relieved stupor.
By the time her food arrived, she was nearly back to her usual self.
"That was amazing!" she gushed, grabbing her fork. "You weren't afraid at all! I thought you might punch him in the throat or something!"
"It wouldn't be the first time," Amélie said, sipping her wine. Hana thought she detected a hint of a smile on her lips.
"That would have been awesome. I would have had to get a video for my blog," she said, shoveling down her food with all the enthusiasm of someone unexpectedly spared death row.
"You have a blog? Of course you do." Amélie scoffed quietly, but her face was relaxed.
"What'ya mean 'of course I do'?" Hana asked. Amélie shrugged.
"You're the right age."
"Didn't you have a blog when you were my age?" Hana asked. Amélie looked thoughtful, swirling her wine around in its glass.
"Yes…yes, I did," she said. "Hm…I haven't thought about that in…a long time." Hana grinned.
"That's me, keeping it hip and fresh," she said. "Hana Song, master of cool."
By the time the waiter arrived to clear Hana's plate, Hana knew a bit more about the woman who had rescued her, but it did nothing to dispel her air of mystery. Comparatively, Hana felt like an open book. She'd come to France for some of the local video game tournaments, a sort of working vacation, since it wasn't strictly necessary that she compete in these. She just thought it would be fun to travel and also game. And like—Paris, right?
"We'll share the volcano cake," Amélie told the waiter.
"Yes, Madame Lacroix," he said, nodding.
"They know your name here?" Hana asked.
The hostess who worked here now had been a waitress when Amélie and Gérard first started coming, after they had moved to Paris for work. When Amélie had called two years prior to make the reservation for one, she must have suspected something. And then this year, when Amélie turned up alone. She had only prayed that she wouldn't get any laughing questions about Gérard's tardiness, where she had to explain this was the last time Amélie would ever be here. After this dinner, she had no intention to ever return.
All night she had waited for that question, a remark, a look—something that would require her to give an explanation. But she supposed it wasn't impossible they'd read about what happened, and even if they hadn't, Amélie's extended absence, followed by two solo reservations may have tipped them off not to ask.
"I used to come here often," she replied softly, memories shimmering in her eyes. Hana looked at her from across the table, in Gérard's seat, all wide-eyed youth and awe with the world. When her date had showed up, Amélie had been surprised by the wave of protectiveness that swept over her. She couldn't tell if it was a female camaraderie thing, or if something about Hana's soft, round cheeks and bright brown eyes inspired it.
"Oh, yeah?" Hana did seem to gather it was not something Amélie wanted to extrapolate on, and didn't ask anything else. "Did you get the volcano cake then too?"
"No." Amélie's lips quivered into a smile. "The volcano cake is my preference. Before, it was cheesecake." Gérard liked cheesecake better, and Amélie loved it chocolate with raspberry syrup, so they usually got that, and she would tell him he had it stuck in his mustache, so he would ask to borrow her hand mirror to check, even after the first few times she laughed when he looked to see nothing.
"Ever been to South Korea?" Hana asked.
"I can't say that I have," Amélie replied.
"Well, we have these spicy rice cakes for dessert, and they're to die for."
"Spicy? For dessert?" Amélie asked.
"Yeah! They're really good," she said. "If you ever go there, try 'em."
"I'll do that," Amelia said with a dry little laugh. The waiter arrived with their cake, and Hana grabbed the forks, thrusting one out to Amélie as she eyed the cake.
Hana hadn't ever had a proper volcano cake, but she was still pretty sure this was the best one ever. She didn't even look up for half a dozen bites, and when she did, Amélie seemed as ensconced in bliss as she was. She wiped a bit of chocolate off her lip with her thumb and sucked it clean, closing her eyes in pleasure. Hana stuffed her gaping mouth with another bite of cake. When Wonder Woman opened her eyes, she smiled at Hana, small, but genuine.
"Delicious," she pronounced, helping herself to another bite. Hana nodded vigorously.
"You know what would go really good with this?" she asked. "Strawberries."
"Mm, you're right," Amélie said. "Fresh fruit and chocolate are perfect together."
For a moment, she had thought Amélie was softening, but some cold breeze blew over her and closed her up again before the waiter had returned to take their dessert plate and hand Amélie the bill.
"Did you drive here?" Amélie asked as she took her card back.
"No, Rich drove us," Hana sighed. Not that the subway wasn't a perfectly acceptable transport, but now she'd have to navigate it in her date wear, and she was tired.
"Do you want a ride home?"
"Oh no, it's fine," Hana said. "I can take the subway."
"My dates do not take the subway," Amélie said, rising to her feet like Venus from the ocean. She took her purse. "Come on, if you want the ride." Hana followed.
Amélie put on no music in the car, and Hana's hand twitched several times to reach out and punch on the radio, but with Amélie less than two feet away, she didn't quite dare.
"Where are you staying?" Amélie asked when they entered Hana's neighborhood.
"There's a guest house, I've been there the last month," she said. "It's cool because you can meet other travelers. I even met a guy from Brazil there!"
When they reached her building, Amélie pulled up to the curb.
"You should choose your dates more carefully in the future, Hana Song," she said.
"God, believe me, I will," Hana said with a shudder. "This is exactly why I stay away from the mess of the dating world. Thanks, though. You were a real life-saver tonight. Are you sure you don't want me to cover any of dinner…?"
Amélie shook her head firmly. "No."
"Alright then, goodnight," Hana said with an awkward smile. It was on the tip of her tongue to say something playful and cool like 'Do I get a goodnight kiss?' but all she managed was to stammer out, "Thanks for the date!" She couldn't read Amélie's expression, but it didn't seem irritated. Nevertheless, she fumbled for the door handle and let herself out. "You can look me up online if you want!" she offered cheerfully. "I'm ! Period instead of an I." She flashed a peace sign with her signature smile.
"Perhaps I will," Amélie said, but Hana didn't think she would. "Take care, Mlle. Song."
"You too. And um, thanks again. You really saved me—my night." Amélie's eyes were gentle as she nodded.
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight!" Hana finally managed to shut the door, and Amélie sped off in her sleek black car like some sort of French, female Batman.
Hana went straight for the shower and scrubbed the first half of the night off herself, but while she was waiting for the water to warm up, she did give her dress a little sniff to see if any of Amélie's perfume scent lingered. Nothing. Some sweat from her mini-breakdown in the bathroom but nothing else. When she was clean, and her hair balanced in a towel on her head, she seated herself cross-legged at her desk chair and woke up her computer.
First, she had to do a Twitter rehash of the evening.
"…one of those times a real life mute button would be great…"
"...and this chick just busts in like some kind of asshole-destroying tank and tells him basically to fuck right off. Finishes up with 'goodbye, monsieur' conversation OVER…"
"…THEN she pays for the whole dinner, buys us dessert and offers me a ride. Girl power? I think I love this woman…"
When she was done with that, and responding to a few messages about the evening, she switched over to a search of this Amélie Lacroix. The Frenchwoman hadn't given her a handle or any way to find her, but Hana figured if there was anything to turn up, she could find it.
The first thing that turned up in her search was the website for Mme. Lacroix's ballet company. The second was an old news article.
"AMÉLIE LACROIX, WIDOW OF GÉRARD LACROIX, BACKS ANNECY MAYOR'S CALL FOR GREATER SECURITY"
It only took a scan of the first two paragraphs to find something more interesting.
"…Mme. Lacroix, wife of the late Gérard Lacroix, and witness to his violent end at the hands of Omnic terrorists…" There was a link, and Hana clicked it to be redirected to an older news articles, years old.
"GÉRARD LACROIX, HIGH-RANKING FRENCH OFFICER, KILLED BY OMNIC TERRORISTS"
"GÉRARD LACROIX DEAD; WIFE RECOVERED ALIVE"
"GÉRARD AND AMÉLIE LACROIX STILL MISSING AFTER THREE WEEKS OF SEARCHING"
"GÉRARD LACROIX, TOP FRENCH OFFICER, MISSING. OMNICS SUSPECTED"
"Oh, fuck," Hana whispered as she read through the report. She clicked around a few other links to read multiple accounts, and was faced with a regrettably clear picture.
Amelie Lacroix, now missing for almost a month, has been recovered from a hide-out in the French city of Marseilles. Wife to high-ranking army officer Gerard Lacroix, she and her husband were targeted by Omnic terrorists and kidnapped while leaving the theater in her hometown of Annecy last month. A nation-wide manhunt has been underway, and police say they had been losing hope of recovering either of the Lacroixes alive.
Gérard Lacroix, noted recipient of the Legion of Honor award for his dedicated work during the First Omnic Crisis, was declared dead on the scene by police. He appears to have been dead for several days at least, but a full autopsy is expected to produce more answers.
Mme. Lacroix has been transferred to Hôpital Nord where she is expected to make a full recovery. She could not be reached for comment at this time.
The grim scene investigators found inside the hide-out proves the need for greater scrutiny and tighter security in France…
One tabloid even had a photo of Amélie surrounded by police, a shock blanket over her shoulders, her face spattered with blood. Hana could practically hear the clicks in her brain as half a dozen things slid into place. "Fuck, man."
She grabbed her headset and navigated to one of her contacts, a good friend of hers from back home. "Hey girl, I know it's early over there, but I gotta talk to you about tonight…"
The silence of the apartment beat Amélie over the head as soon as she stepped in the door. She stripped, and left her dress on the floor, because she could. When she stepped out of the steaming shower, she made herself a cup of decaffeinated tea, and went to bed. She had a voicemail from Gabriel that she declined to listen to for the time being.
As she checked the weather forecast for the week on her phone, trying to occupy her mind, she remembered Hana telling her to look her up. Well, it would offer a distraction. She snuggled down under the covers and punched in Hana's tag.
Apparently, the girl was a legend in video game circles. She was internationally ranked, and had even been recruited by the South Korean army to deal with the Omnic Crisis for her skill navigating MEKAs. Clearly, in her comfort zone, Hana was a whole different person from the one Amélie had met in the restroom. Looking at her in the pictures and videos available on Korean news sites, she actually looked—badass, despite her penchant for pink, and the whisker-like triangles she painted on her face. Nobody who went up against the Omnics was feeble of heart.
Having read her fill, she shut her phone off and put it aside. Pushing her pillow into a decent shape, and curling up into a fetal position beneath the covers, it occurred to Amélie that despite her fears earlier in the day, she hadn't cried once the entire evening.