Even with the delay in the parking garage, Hei and Misaki were the first to arrive at the restaurant.

From the outside, it looked like nothing more than a tiny hole-in-the-wall dive. Inside, however, the room was quite spacious, with red and gold cloth-covered tables and traditional Chinese art decorating the walls. Walking in was almost like stepping through a doorway to home.

"Li!" the young host exclaimed as Hei held the door open for Misaki. "And Chief Kirihara! We haven't seen you for a while; I almost didn't recognize you, Section Chief. Table for two?"

He had addressed the question to Misaki, but Hei saw the annoyance flash across her face and wondered if he ought to answer instead. The look disappeared just as quickly as it had come, however, and Misaki responded with a curt but friendly, "Five, actually. Thanks, Ying; it has been a while. How are your classes going?"

The young man beamed. "Good! I was accepted to the Criminal Justice program; it starts next month."

Misaki's smile took on a bit more warmth. "I'm glad to hear that - did my letter help?"

"I'm sure it did, thank you! Is the rest of Section Four joining you?" Ying asked as he led them to a round table with a golden tablecloth in the center of the room. It was a bit early for dinner, but the place was already beginning to fill up.

"Mr. Kimura was just saying the other day that we needed to invite you all back here soon," Ying continued. "It's good for business, being the unofficial Chinese restaurant of Tokyo's top police department. Our takeout menu has changed, I'll get you new copies."

"Actually, some of my family are visiting," Hei told him. "They should be here in a minute."

He seated himself in the chair that gave him the best line of sight to both the main doors and the kitchen entrance, which led to the back exit. Misaki gave him a look of mock-suffering - she knew he'd probably never be able to give up those old habits, and had stopped trying to break him of them - and pulled out the chair to his right, tucking her skirt beneath her as she sat.

Ying's eyebrows rose. "All the way from Shanghai? Wow!"

"Um." Hei gave an uncomfortable cough. "No; Xi'an, in Shaanxi Province."

"Really? I could have sworn you were from Shanghai."

Hei ignored the side-eyed glance that Misaki was giving him and kept his expression innocently blank. It wasn't his fault that Li Shengshun had been from Shanghai. "Nope. Xi'an."

"Still, that's a quite a trip, huh. Do you want to order now, or wait until they get here?"

"We'll order now, thanks."

Ying was just writing down the last of the order when the swinging of the front door caught Hei's eye. Hei let out a breath of relief that he hadn't realized he'd been holding when Grandfather walked in, followed closely by Jiang and Uncle.

Grandfather glanced around the room; he smiled when he spotted Hei and Misaki and led the way over.

Ying bowed and greeted them warmly in Mandarin. "You must be Li's family," he said. "Very happy to meet you - please have a seat and I'll bring out some tea!"

"Shit, man, you really do know everyone in this town," Jiang said as Ying left for the kitchen. "You must eat here all the fucking time if they know your name!"

He pulled out the chair on Hei's other side. Grandfather had chosen to sit beside Misaki, Hei was gratified to see. That left Uncle directly across from Hei, between Jiang and Grandfather.

Hei shook his head. "I worked here for a while; I know Ying from then, that's all."

"Here? The police is way more badass, no wonder you quit."

"Well, I didn't quit just to join the police. And I liked working here - I got all the free food I wanted. But yeah, I think I like Section Four better."

Actually, he'd quit because he'd needed to spend a month infiltrating the Friends of the Gate cult; after that, Amber had put her plans into motion and he'd been completely consumed with trying to track her down while following increasingly complicated orders from the Syndicate and coordinating information hand-offs with Misaki. He hadn't had a chance to even think about asking Mr. Kimura for his part-time job back before he'd had to go on the run.

"That young man had a strange accent," Uncle commented.

"His family's from Beijing, but he grew up in Chinatown; in Yokohama."

"Hm." Uncle pulled out a pair of reading glasses - Hei had never seen him wear glasses before - and picked up the menu. "What's good here?"

"Everything. I ordered already, don't worry."

"Did you get enough?" Jiang asked, slapping down his own menu. "I'm fucking starving!"

Uncle chuckled. "I remember the mountain of food you boys used to eat - Jiang still does. Mother spends most of every day cooking, just to keep up. I imagine you're the same?" he asked Misaki.

"I can set my watch by his stomach," she said with a laugh. Hei noticed that she made no acknowledgment of the actual question. "My team used to tease me about how much I eat, until they met him!"

Ying reappeared then, this time with a steaming clay teapot and a stack of round cups. "Mr. Kimura knew it was you and Chief Kirihara as soon as I put the order in," he told Hei, setting out the cups. "No one else ever orders that much food in one go - it must be enough for twenty people!"

"I got enough," Hei told Jiang with a grin as Ying returned to the kitchen. "Don't worry."

Grandfather reached for the teapot, but Misaki beat him to it. "Let me," she said with a warm smile. She poured out a cup for Grandfather, then another for Uncle.

Hei took the pot from her before she could pour one for him. He appreciated that she was making such an effort, but subservience from her was just too unnatural; it made him uncomfortable. As the junior member of Section Four, he was the one who fetched the tea for the whole team - a fact that Kouno never let him forget. Deadly contractor, feared assassin…pourer of tea! the detective would announce at every morning debrief.

Misaki gave him an exasperated look, but didn't comment as he poured out his own cup before passing the pot to Jiang.

Uncle blew on his cup, then took a sip. "The chef's name is Kimura? I thought this was a Chinese restaurant."

"Mr. Kimura's Japanese, yes," Hei said. "But he lived in Beijing for about a decade and learned to cook traditional dishes there. The food's authentic, don't worry - his dumplings taste exactly like what you'd buy on the street."

"How would you know?" Jiang asked. "You lived there too?"

Hei shrugged. "For a while, yeah."

"Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing - you've traveled all over, but never had time to come back to Xi'an?"

"No."

Hei took a long sip of the scalding tea to avoid making eye contact with anyone at the table. Beneath the gold cloth, Misaki reached over and squeezed his knee.

"Grandmother and I took a trip to Beijing once," Grandfather said mildly. "There are some beautiful temples there. You probably don't remember, Hong, you were still very young. An loved it though. She'd never seen the ocean before."

"Mom told me about that trip once," Hei remembered suddenly. "She said she loved the waves so much, she could float in the water for days. Xing was the same, the first time we swam in the ocean."

"Where was that?"

"Um, Hong Kong," Hei lied.

Hong Kong had been the first time that they'd seen the ocean; while Hei had marveled at such a vast expanse of water, Xing hadn't been interested at all.

The first time that they'd actually stepped onto a beach and swum in the waves, though, had been off the northeast coast of Brazil, outside of a little deserted fishing village that they'd stumbled across after having escaped a band of mercenaries.

Amber had talked them into taking a quick swim. Xing hadn't seen the point, but after much coaxing from Hei finally humored him and stepped into the water. Her almost childlike expression of wonder at the feel of the sand rushing away beneath her feet at the retreat of the waves had nearly brought tears to Hei's eyes.

For his part, floating in the gentle rise and fall beyond the breakers, he'd felt light, almost as if he'd been transported to a world before the Gates, before contractors, where he'd never had to worry about anything more serious than getting his homework done before bedtime. He would have killed any number of men to feel that again, to see that innocence return to Xing's face.

"What's so great about the ocean?" Jiang broke into Hei's silent reminiscence. "It's just a lot of water. Anyway, when did you learn how to swim?"

"I don't know, a while ago. It's kind of fun, as long as I don't have to do laps."

"Laps are fun!" Misaki protested. "I don't understand why you hate them so much. Even if you do look like a, um, how do you say it?"

Hei eyed her, then sighed. "A pregnant hippopotamus, is what you say. I wouldn't say that…"

Jiang snorted a laugh. "I bet you do, though!"

"Like you could do any better!" Hei shot back with a smile. "You'd probably look like a drowning duck."

"Yeah, right - how hard can it be? You just paddle with your arms and kick your feet, right? That's easy enough!"

"That will keep you from sinking," Misaki said. "But the actual strokes can be technically challenging."

"Misaki swam competitively in school," Hei told them with no little pride. "She's won quite a few trophies."

"Just regional competitions. My dad has all the trophies packed up in a box, I don't know why he keeps them." She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear; Hei could tell that she was trying hard not to blush.

"He must be proud of you," Grandfather said kindly. "Do you swim still?"

"A little, in the mornings. Just to stay in shape, you know?"

"An hour every single day," Hei added.

Grandfather nodded in approval. "Very disciplined."

She definitely blushed at that; but she was saved from further conversation when Ying brought two dishes of fried rice to the table.

"You ordered two of the same thing?" she asked as the young man set them on the cloth. "I didn't catch that; you said everything so quickly. Wait…" She eyed the dish closest to her, and gave a snort. Then scooped a heaping pile onto her plate.

Jiang studied the two bowls closely. "Fried rice with beef, except one doesn't have peas. Why would you order one without peas?" He glanced at Misaki and the bowl she was serving herself from. "You don't like peas?"

"Not particularly. Still, Hei, you didn't need to order a separate dish."

"I know."

"Before we were dating," Misaki said around a mouthful of rice, while everyone else helped themselves to both dishes, "when Hei was still working here, we met for lunch one day and he brought me some leftover fried rice. I hate peas, so I didn't eat them, but I didn't say anything about it. Then a couple weeks later we met up again, and he brought me food like before. Except the rice in my takeout container didn't have a single pea, while his was full of them. He must have picked out every single one before packaging it up to give it to me."

Jiang laughed. "Smooth, man!"

Hei blinked at her. "You noticed that?" She'd never said a word about it.

"Of course I noticed. I'm a highly trained police detective, aren't I?" She smiled. "You can learn more about a person by watching and listening than talking, right? I had a pretty solid idea of exactly what sort of person you were before we ever - before we started dating."

"Typical." Jiang shook his head and took a huge spoon from both rice bowls. "You gotta watch this guy - he always was a ladies' man."

"Oh really?"

"What? No I wasn't." Hei didn't like that gleam in Misaki's eye.

Jiang jabbed at Hei with his chopsticks. "Yeah, of course you weren't - like when you offered to make a new kite for that blond girl? Even though she could just buy a new one?"

"It tore when I got it down from the tree - I was just being nice."

"Blond?" Misaki asked in Japanese. "Is that what he said?"

Hei really didn't like the look in her eye now. He wished that Jiang had left that little detail out; Amber was one topic that he and Misaki still couldn't have a calm and measured discussion about. It didn't help that Hei had never fully sorted through his conflicting feelings on Amber's role in his life.

These arguments were what had led Misaki to suggest therapy - but he wasn't even close to getting to the subject with Haruko yet. As it turned out, strangely enough, there were a lot of deep-seated issues in addition to Amber that he'd never managed to deal with. She was just the tip of the iceberg.

"She was closer to brunette," he said hurriedly. "Anyway, it was a long time ago. I barely remember it."

Jiang snickered; but Grandfather was chuckling too.

"Tian was always a kind-hearted boy," Grandfather told Misaki. "I'm sure you already know that."

The warmth crept back into Misaki's smile. "I do."

Ying made another appearance at the table then, this time bearing a plate stacked high with steaming dumplings. He set it in the center of the table.

Hei glanced to his left and caught Jiang's eye. No sort of signal passed between them; but at the same instant they both half-rose from their chairs, chopsticks darting for the top bun. Hei slipped in just under Jiang's chopsticks and snagged the bun first.

"Fucker!" Jiang exclaimed, pounding his fist on the table. "I'll beat you one of these days!"

"I doubt it," Hei said around a mouthful of bun. He reached out again, more leisurely this time, and selected a bun for Misaki.

Her lips quirked up in amusement. "I don't think I've ever seen this competitive side of you before. Not even during team sparring."

"These two boys," Uncle said as Ying delivered yet more plates of food, "competed over everything. On the wushu mats we couldn't get Tian to press an advantage to save his life; but tell him that he couldn't hold his breath as long as Jiang and they'd both be passing out, blue in the face."

"He just doesn't like people watching him," Jiang said. "Stage fright. Like a little girl."

"I don't have stage fright!" Hei protested, though inwardly he thought Jiang might be right. His bulletproof coat had never made him feel half so invincible as when he slipped on his mask. Even the black kerchief that he'd used in South America had given him far more courage than any knife or garrote.

"Then why'd you always fight so much better when it was just the two of us?" Jiang demanded.

"He did?" Uncle asked in mild surprise. "I don't think I ever noticed. We never paired the two of you up that often, and you never sparred outside of class. Horsed around and generally made asses of yourselves, yes; but not sparring."

"I believe Jiang is referring to the times he and Tian would sneak in to the training room in the middle of the night."

They both turned to Grandfather in surprise.

"What?" Hei asked as Jiang said, "We didn't -"

Grandfather cut them off with a wave of his hand. "Did you really think that I didn't know? And why do you think I never said anything?"

They exchanged a look. From Jiang's expression, he'd had no better idea than Hei that Grandfather had known about their little excursions on those nights when the Li family had stayed over.

"Don't look so guilty," Uncle laughed. "It's hardly the worst thing you two have ever done."

"They got in trouble a lot, I take it?" Misaki asked, that mischievous glint back in her eye. "Hei told me about the fireworks."

"Which fireworks?" Jiang said. "The ones at the lake house or the ones in the vegetable market?"

Hei coughed loudly as Uncle said, "Vegetable market? What was this?"

"Shit, um, I mean, that was some other kids. Not us. Never mind. Anyway, it was Tian's idea."

"What? No it wasn't."

"You're the one who got the fireworks."

"I just wanted to test them out - it was your idea to set them off in the market!"

"Well where else would we have done it?"

"I don't know - at home? In the courtyard? Somewhere where we wouldn't give some poor old lady a heart attack?"

"And scorch Grandmother's whitewash? She'd murder us! Anyway, no one had a heart attack, that lady was just being a whiny little bitch!"

Hei snorted. "That's what you always say - you said I was being a whiny little bitch when we ended up stranded in the middle of the lake!"

"Well, you were! Moaning about how we were going to miss dinner just because you dropped the oars."

"You dropped the oars. I was more worried about drowning than missing dinner - that was you."

"It was your idea to build the damn raft in the first place."

"I just wanted to see if it would float; you're the one who thought it'd be a good idea to get it on it."

"And whose idea what it to paddle to the middle of the fucking lake?"

"Well, the water by the shore was too shallow. How else were we supposed to test it? It's still your fault we lost the oars."

They continued arguing good-naturedly as Ying cleared off the empty dishes to make room for new ones. Uncle would occasionally interject to remind them of yet another stupid thing they'd done. Grandfather, Hei noticed, wasn't eating much, but rather sitting back and listening to the arguments serenely.

It wasn't until Ying brought out the Peking duck that Hei realized that Misaki hadn't said a word in quite some time.

"I'm sorry," he said to her in Japanese as everyone divided up the duck. "We're probably speaking too fast, aren't we."

"It is pretty hard to follow," she said, smiling. "But I don't mind. I've never heard you laugh like this before. I'm happy just listening."

Hei didn't know what to say; he could feel a self-conscious blush rising in his cheeks.

"Anyway, the duck is getting cold," Misaki said abruptly. She reached across the table and took a huge slice.

Jiang paused, his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. "You're still hungry? Damn, I've never seen a girl eat so much!"

"Duck is my favorite," Misaki said calmly. "Hei made this dish for me for my birthday. That's when I decided that he was definitely worth keeping around." She flashed Hei a quick grin.

He huffed a laughed and scraped the remnants of the platter onto his plate.

Misaki continued, "Oh, that reminds me. When is his birthday? He can't remember, and I feel bad not being able to celebrate it on the proper day."

Everyone turned to stare at Hei. Uncle frowned with clear disapproval.

"I think you may have misspoke," Grandfather told her kindly. "It sounded like you said Tian can't remember his birthday?"

Hei shifted awkwardly. "No, that's what she meant. I, uh, I'm not really sure when my exact birthday is."

"Who the fuck forgets their birthday?" Jiang snorted. "The hell is wrong with you? We all remember it - we hold those goddamn remembrances every year. You knew Xing's was yesterday, right?

"I remember hers, yeah," Hei said with an uncomfortable shrug. "But after we left home, it just didn't seem important to celebrate mine. So it just slipped my mind, I guess."

Jiang and Uncle were both still staring at him like he was from another planet. Then Grandfather spoke up.

"November first," he said.

Hei's brow furrowed. "Really?"

"That's the date you put on your papers," Misaki told him in surprise.

"Huh. Maybe I did remember it, subconsciously?" He thought about the discussions that he'd had with his therapist, about how he'd chosen so many times to use his father's name as an alias without consciously realizing it. All those memories that he thought he'd buried irretrievably deep were much closer to the surface than he'd ever imagined.

Misaki perked up. "That's only a couple weeks after I gave you your key - so I didn't miss it by too much!"

"Yeah, I guess not." He smiled.

"Well," Uncle said, still clearly struggling with the idea of forgetting a birthday, "if Tian was kind enough to cook for you for your birthday, now you know when to make a special dish for his."

"Oh, I can't even boil an egg. I'll just take him out for a good meal so he doesn't have to cook it for once."

"You do the cooking?" Jiang goggled at him.

"Yeah. Why not? I enjoy it - and it keeps Misaki from burning down the kitchen."

She punched his shoulder. "It was only one tiny piece of tofu, and the flame went out almost right away!"

"All you had to do was stir the pan…"

"You never told me how hard," she huffed.

Uncle raised an eyebrow. "Well, you'll have plenty of time to learn how to cook after you're married, I'm sure."

Misaki chewed deliberately before answering. "Why? My schedule isn't going to change at all."

"If anything, she'll be even busier," Hei added. He knew Misaki was perfectly capable of defending herself; but with the questions coming from his family, he felt responsible for shielding her. "Our superiors have been giving her a lot more responsibility recently."

"They just want to see me crash and burn," Misaki muttered, poking at her steamed vegetables.

"They know you can handle it," Hei told her.

"You're not going to leave your job?" Uncle asked in surprise. "I always heard that Japanese women were very traditional in that way."

"A lot of Japanese women are. I'm not."

"Still, I imagine you'll quit once you start a family."

Misaki set her chopsticks down beside her plate. Hei was infinitely grateful that Grandfather was between her and Uncle.

"We, um, haven't talked about a family," he said hurriedly, ignoring Jiang's snickers. "And even if we do decide we want one, there's no reason for Misaki to quit. Not when she loves her work so much, and is so good at it."

"Really? Police work sounds far too dangerous for women, especially expecting mothers. Tian, you'll have to think about what's best for your family; if you really want your children's mother to be away at work all day."

"My mom worked," Hei said quietly. "Xing and I were fine."

A look of pain crossed Uncle's features. "I'm not sure I would say that."

"Hong, you know perfectly well that your sister would have been bored to tears sitting at home all day, especially once the kids started school," Grandfather said, quiet but firm.

"Yes, she probably would have. But at least she would have been home, to teach her children not to run away at the slightest problem."

Hei frowned, his heart rate kicking up a notch. "What do you mean, run away?"

Grandfather gave a significant cough then turned to Misaki. "Don't worry about who will look after your children if you keep your job; Grandmother has already decided that she and I will come to help out."

Misaki's concerned expression turned to one of acute embarrassment. Rather than protest the idea of children, as Hei had expected, she said, "You will? That's too generous - you don't have to -"

Grandfather merely waved his hand. "It's no less than An would have us do. My daughter was very passionate about helping others. She went back to work not long after Xing was born; she said it was too self-indulgent to be sitting around at home when she had a mother and sister-in-law to help her take care of the children, and so many patients in the hospital who had no help at all."

"She sounds like a wonderful person," Misaki said, smiling sadly. "I wish I could have met her. Just like I wish that Hei could have met my mother."

"It must have been hard for you, losing her so young."

"It was. I still miss her, every day. But all I can do is remember her, and keep moving on with my life."

"Yes; that is all any of us can do, isn't it."

"Hei told me that his mother was an amazing wushu performer?"

Grandfather chuckled. "She was. A very natural talent, and did quite well in competitions. She disliked sparring though, thought it was too violent. A trait she passed down to her son."

They both smiled at Hei; he coughed into his napkin. "I don't think it's too violent," he protested. "I just…don't like it as much as taolu."

"I have to say, your fighting style has improved quite a bit, Tian," Uncle said. He was focusing on scooping up the last of the rice, rather than meet Hei's eyes. "Your form has suffered of course; that's bound to happen if you're focusing on aikido instead of traditional wushu. But you don't hesitate anywhere near as much as you used to."

Jiang laughed, clearly relieved at the shift in conversation. "Yeah, but he still apologizes whenever he hits someone! You apologize to everyone you arrest, too?"

Despite his cousin's outward good humor, Hei thought there was an edge to his laugh. "Of course not," he said, rubbing the back of his head.

"You apologized to that Korean jewel thief you arrested," Misaki said with a sly smile; Jiang practically spit out his tea.

"I was just trying to put him off his guard! You know, the whole good cop…thing?"

"Hei, that only works in movies."

"Well, he was a contractor. It works on them, when you don't respond with the human emotion that they're expecting."

"Whoa, wait, you've actually arrested a contractor?" Jiang leaned forward, his eyes shining. "What was his superpower?"

Hei shrugged. "This guy? He could phase through solid objects."

"Fucking awesome - not very dangerous though." Jiang sounded almost disappointed.

"Sure, until he phases his hand through your chest and rips out your heart."

"Whoa, shit, really? Did you see him do that?"

"No," Hei lied. "But it would have been possible."

"It must be fucking hard to catch these guys though, huh."

"Some of them, yeah; depending on their ability we have to get kind of creative sometimes."

"Wouldn't it be easier just to shoot them?"

Hei sensed Misaki stiffen beside him. "Lethal force is always a last resort," she said, with some help from Hei with the translation. "They're still people, who have the same right to live as the rest of us."

"Yeah, but what if they're like, really dangerous, and you can't catch them?"

"If they're endangering innocent lives, then yes; I'll authorize the use of lethal force."

"Whoa, you mean you're the one who decides if the police can shoot them?" Jiang was staring at her partly in awe, and partly in disbelief. "Tian, have you ever shot a contractor?"

"Jiang, what kind of question is that?" Grandfather said sharply.

"What? It's his job, isn't it? But come on, it's Tian - can you actually see him shooting anyone?"

"I've never had to shoot a contractor I was trying to arrest," Hei said, focusing on his food. Beneath the table, Misaki pressed her leg up against his. "But I would, if it was to protect other people."

Jiang snorted. "Yeah, right. You'd just ask them to stop hurting people, pretty please." He turned to Misaki and gestured with his chopsticks. "You carry a gun even to dinner - I bet you've shot someone, huh?"

"I killed a contractor three weeks ago," Misaki said. Her voice was even, but Hei recognized the tone; she wanted desperately to change the subject.

"Whoa, no way! Was he attacking someone?"

"He was recklessly endangering the public. Hei had almost caught him, but he hit his head during the fight. The contractor would have killed him if I hadn't shot him."

"You hit your head?" Grandfather asked, his voice full of concern. "Are you alright?"

Hei rubbed the red scar on his forehead. "I'm fine. Just a concussion."

"That was when he proposed to me, by the way," Misaki said. "Standing over the dead body of a contractor."

Jiang burst out laughing. "Fucking smooth, man!"

"I had a concussion!" Hei protested. "I did it properly afterwards…"

Misaki smiled at him. "Yes, you did."

"I hardly think the dinner table is the place to talk about these things," Uncle said with a shake of his head. "Tian, are you sure this is the career that you want, especially for someone like you - chasing after these dangerous monsters?"

Misaki answered before Hei had a chance to open his mouth. "Contractors aren't monsters," she said. "They can be dangerous, yes, but so can normal humans."

Uncle eyed her. "So you'd let one just walk down the street, without trying to arrest them?"

"Arrest them for what? Being a contractor isn't illegal. Yet, anyway - and won't be, if I have my way."

"Anyway, it's impossible to tell the difference between a human and a contractor," Hei added.

"I had heard that the Japanese are very pro-contractor," Grandfather said mildly.

"We're not pro-contractor so much as we're anti…injustice, I guess?" Misaki said. "It's not their fault that they are what they are. I've chased down a lot of contractors who were dangerous murderers, of course; and I've also worked alongside quite a few that were just trying to do their jobs."

"Worked alongside?" Uncle frowned. "You mean you would trust someone like that? Someone without a single shred of dignity or morals?"

"Yes. I'd even hire one for my own team."

"But how could you ever trust them not to turn on you? Everything I've ever heard says that contractors are vicious thugs who would betray you at the drop of a hat."

"So would a lot of people," Misaki said calmly. "There's a lot of misinformation about contractors out there; I'm trying to change that."

"Yeah, but you wouldn't trust someone like that Black Snake bastard, right?" Jiang put in. "The contractor in that video? He was a fucking badass, but damn - murdering those guards in cold blood like that? Only one even got close to hitting him! You'd have to shoot him."

Uncle nodded. "Cold-hearted killers like that don't deserve to exist in this world."

Hei could feel his expression growing stonier, into the featureless mask of a contractor who buried his emotions deep down. He wanted to crawl under the table, flee from the restaurant - anything to escape Grandfather's silent, contemplative gaze.

Misaki's voice had a definite chill to it when she said, "I would trust someone like that, actually. If I understood his motivations, and he could prove to me that he could keep his word."

Uncle shook his head. "This is why women have so much trouble in leadership positions; this sort of thing calls for a rational analysis, not decisions made with emotion."

Misaki's eyes narrowed; Hei cut in hurriedly. "She's right, though. Contractors are pretty predictable. As long as you know what will keep one loyal, they will be loyal. And more and more these days, they're finding their own values to follow."

"Well, you would know all about contractors," Uncle said bitterly.

Hei blinked. "What do you mean?"

"It was a contractor who killed your parents, right?"

It was like he'd just been punched in the gut. He could hardly breathe despite the pounding of his heart.

"After the existence of those monsters was made public last year, it was obvious. How else could An and Xingkun both have died, without a mark on them?"

Jiang had gone completely silent. Grandfather frowned and said, "Hong, we don't need to talk about this now."

"Then when will we talk about it? You never want to say a word; we can't know what happened, so why try to figure it out? All you wanted to talk about was how Tian and Xing must still be alive - I didn't believe it, but well, you were right. And here Tian is, with all the answers we've been looking for - and you still don't want to talk about it!"

"Tian and Xing are alive; that's all that matters now."

"I don't have any answers," Hei said quietly. He'd never heard his uncle speak to Grandfather this way, and it made him distinctly uncomfortable. "I'm sorry."

"But it was a contractor who killed them - you and Xing saw it?" Uncle demanded.

"Yes."

"Why? What threat could my sister possibly have been - why kill her?"

Hei shrugged. "There wasn't a reason. It was just…bad luck."

"Bad luck," Uncle repeated. "One of those monsters broke into your house and killed your parents, and it was just bad luck."

Hei didn't answer. Misaki reached over and gripped his hand beneath the table.

"And what about you and Xing? You saw this, but the contractor didn't kill you too? So what did happen - did the police take you, to keep you quiet?"

There was an undeniable note of accusation in his tone; Hei knew that a lie along those lines wasn't going to work.

He took a deep breath and said, "No. We left."

"You left. You left, with your parents dead on the floor, and the rest of your family thinking that you were dead as well."

"It was the only way to keep Xing safe…"

"Your family are the ones who keep you safe! You should have come to us. Instead you ran away like a frightened child, and dragged your poor sister after you! And where is she now - why are you so ashamed to say a word about her?"

"Xing is her own person, who makes her own decisions," Hei said, dully repeating the words that his therapist had gone through with him so many times.

Uncle pointed a finger directly at Hei. "You are her older brother - you were supposed to protect her! Instead you ran away, left her god knows where, and changed your name to start a new life in a foreign country. Just left your family behind like we don't even exist; and now you want to come back and pretend like none of that happened? I can't believe my poor sister could ever have raised such a selfish child."

Clang!

All heads turned to Misaki, who had just thrown her napkin down onto her plate. "That's enough!" she said, in the same voice that she reserved for uncooperative contractors. "I can't sit here and listen to this. You have no idea - no idea - what he went through to keep his sister safe. And all of you, too! And you dare to - to -" she broke off, struggling to find the words in Mandarin.

"I'm sorry, Hei, I can't do this. I can't listen to him talk to you like that. You shouldn't have to listen to it either! I - I just need some air."

She stood abruptly, her expression stormy, and stalked out of the restaurant.

He watched her go, pain lancing through his chest. Then he stood as well.

"Running away again?" Uncle asked coldly.

"I think we all need a break," Hei said. He pulled enough cash from his wallet to cover the bill and tossed it onto the table.

"Tian…" Grandfather began, but Hei shook his head, unable to meet the old man's gaze.

"I'll see you at the match tomorrow. Maybe." Then he followed Misaki out into the night.