"I told you there's a renegade police cell about. You need to be more careful with using police radios until we deal with the threat."
"I'm here with you, aren't I?" Bi-Han closed his eyes, letting a doctor attending to him clean the stab wound with a damp warm flannel. Grace had brought him to the private clinic owned by the JFP. It was far more comfortable than the medical wing of the Lin Kuei Temple.
"How did you get stabbed anyway? I thought I told you to steer clear of picking fights. We're not ready for a clan war right now." Grace was impatient, but it was the endearing impatience for those in her inner circle, not the knife edge tone she took with those who displeased her.
Bi-Han opened his eyes slightly,
"I stayed clear of picking fights with anyone important, but Tiger Chen needed crushing down to size."
Grace swore faintly and put a hand to her head.
"I cleared everything up with Qian Desheng. He'll hold off retribution for now. He's counting on you catapulting him into the leadership of his clan though." Bi-Han's lip twitched as disinfectant was swiped over the gash in his side.
"Just a small peace offering then." Her voice was heavy with sarcasm.
"I'll sort it all out, don't worry." He said vaguely.
"I have to live with this mess after all this is over. Not all of us can just waltz away once the violence is over."
Bi-Han glanced at her sharply, then at the doctor tending to him. She gave a reluctant nod, agreeing not to mention the temporary nature of Bi-Han's work in front of a third party. Grace perched on the end of the hospital bed. The room was large and spacious with a tall tropical pot plant and large soothing landscape photographs. Long glass windows looked out into a square manicured garden. Dawn was touching a simple fountain in its centre, babbling between smooth round stones and neatly trimmed bushes and plants. Grace checked her watch,
"Your brother will be here soon."
"Huh? He's coming here?" Bi-Han cracked his sleepy eyes open wider. It had been a long trying night and he'd trailed a fair amount of blood through Kowloon.
"I had someone look in on him after you left. He asked to be brought to you when you returned. He's been up all night anxious about your Kowloon exploits."
"Look in on him? Not Anton, I hope."
Grace didn't bother answering that. She got up and pushed aside the hanging blinds that gave the room privacy. Beyond was the clinic corridor, and beyond that the car park. Yellow headlights swung into the room through the crack in the blinds.
"You better get that cash to Julius Hau as quickly as possible. Quian Desheng won't stay his hand forever. If we want to avoid a war on two fronts, we're going to need to get a move on."
Bi-Han shifted uncomfortably on the bed,
"They will exploit my weaknesses if I go to them before this heals." He nodded to the stab wound. Julius and Clarence Tse had used a simple tattoo to pick him apart and study him. He hated the thought of what they might do if he came in with a fresh knife wound. They could dissect a man with stares alone, and Bi-Han felt he'd had more than enough dissecting recently.
"I told you before, vulnerability will serve you well around my father's men. You will be seen as less of a threat."
"Because I am less of a threat! If I'm not at the top of my game then when things start to go wrong I can't fix them. I can't control-"
"It's not about control, Zho."
"It is for me!"
She turned round from the window and looked at him. One of her eyebrows raised. Bi-Han found himself blushing slightly. He ploughed on regardless.
"What I mean is – when I'm in control, things go to plan. The results I get you come from careful planning, not from blundering into situations with heavily armed dangerous people with a gaping whole in my side."
"Whilst I'm thrilled you're finally talking caution, you're going about all this in the wrong way. To get to people you cannot always appear as an unstoppable juggernaut. You need to weave a story of up and downs into their life. Give them ways to trust you, ways to manipulate you.
"What do you think I've been doing all this time," Bi-Han growled.
She raised her other eyebrow in warning, glancing again at the doctor. Bi-Han looked away sullenly.
"It's not my father's style to set a man a mission only to kill him on his return. If it was a simple matter of wanting you dead, you never would have met Julius and Clarence."
"You fill me with reassurance." Bi-Han said coldly.
"Enough, Zho. Have a little faith. I know what I'm doing. You do this my way up until the very end. Or do we need to discuss our agreement again."
He shook his head,
"We'll do it your way."
"Good." She said, clearly not expecting any other answer. "Now stop moping. Someone is here to see you."
The door opened and Kuai ran in,
"B-…" Kuai managed to cut off Bi-Han's name before it poured from his mouth. He ran to his brother's bedside and flung arms around him.
"Mind his bandage, please." The doctor said sharply.
"Bandage?!" Kuai pulled back, "Are you-?"
"I'm fine." Bi-Han rolled his eyes as Kuai's face filled with concern.
"How did someone hurt you?!"
"Believe it or not, I'm not impervious to steel."
From Kuai's face it looked like he didn't believe it. The idea that his perfect brother could be hurt and injured like any other human being had drained him of colour.
"Ergh." Bi-Han made a face, "Stop looking like that. You know I hate it when you look upset." He shuffled over with difficulty on the hospital bed and patted next to him. "Sit."
Kuai pulled himself up onto the bed next to Bi-Han, looking up at him with wide eyes.
"I'll see you later, Zho." Grace turned her hand in a vague wave, "Let me know when you want to finish the mission. I'm warning you though – don't leave it too long."
She left and the door clicked shut behind her. Kuai tugged the corner of the hospital blanket over himself too. The doctor tutted in disapproval.
"That'll do." Bi-Han waved the doctor away, "Come back later."
"Mr Zho-" The doctor protested.
Bi-Han gave a sharp jerk of his head and the doctor left. Bi-Han looked down at his brother.
"Heard you didn't sleep much."
"I was worried," Kuai said in a small voice. A quiet settled. Gentle dawn light filled the garden beyond the windows and steeped the hospital room in long warm shadows. "I did some practice though. I made a sword of ice and I did a whole form with it before it shattered. Do you remember a few months ago when I could barely make one at all?"
"You're progressing fast." Bi-Han smiled at him at ruffled his hair. Kuai glowed at the praise.
"Bi-Han…?" He said thoughtfully.
Bi-Han sighed. He always recognised Kuai's contemplative voice, full of revelations beyond his years and trouble in the making.
"I wish we could always be like this."
"Like what, me stabbed in a hospital bed and you stealing my covers?"
"I'm not stealing them!" Kuai protested, but then he paused, and checked to make sure the blanket covered his brother too.
"Ah. Leave it." Bi-Han batted him away.
"I mean I wish we could stay here as people living lives. You always seem much calmer and happier. And you say kinder things to me. You wear what you like and do what you like and you seem-"
"Softer."
"Y-" Kuai paused, realisation hitting him. He looked up, suddenly afraid, "No! I didn't mean...-"
Bi-Han was once more an unreadable wall, stony eyes reminding Kuai of the Lin Kuei once more.
"That's what the civilian world does to you. It makes you soft. Stay too long and you become tepid, worthless, undisciplined-"
"You don't really think that! I've seen you – you seem happier, you seem more free!"
"What do you know of free." Bi-Han said bitterly.
"Not much." Kuai looked up at him with bright honest eyes, "But I'd like to know more."
"Treason." Bi-Han muttered, but without venom.
"I learn from the best." Kuai grinned.
Bi-Han seemed to blink with surprise,
"What? I never-…" He turned dark eyes to Kuai, "I am loyal to the Lin Kuei!"
Kuai tried to gauge that response. He wasn't sure if it was an angry protest, or a Bi-Han trying to assure himself. Not wanting to walk into further trouble, Kuai stayed quiet. Bi-Han's words hung in the air. In the silence after them, they both lay thinking. After a little, Kuai nudged a little closer. He was relieved when he wasn't pushed away. He felt a pent up breath release from his brother's chest. A slightly uncertain hand draped itself over Kuai's shoulders and drew him closer. Kuai smiled to himself and closed his eyes.
Kuai awoke in the empty hospital bed to find a white plastic table on a moveable arm in front of him, topped with a juice carton and a box of cookies. He blinked in the bright light. The sun was high in the sky and Bi-Han was nowhere to be seen.
Kuai poked the straw into the juice cartoon and sipped sullenly. He jumped down from the bed and peered through the blinds. He frowned then looked back at the empty room. He noticed Bi-Han's jacket and sunglasses neatly folded on a chair at the side. He pulled on the jacket and admired the way its arms draped long below his finger tips. He pushed sunglasses onto his nose that swamped half his face. He meandered out into the clinic corridor and up to the reception, sucking noisily on his orange juice.
"Hey!" He waved to get the receptionists attention, "Hey have you seen my brother?"
"He left this morning. He had work to do." The receptionist gave a kind smile as Kuai huffed. "There's a car for you outside."
"For me?" Kuai's chest puffed up with pride.
"Ms Grace said you were to be taken wherever you wished."
Kuai pushed his new sunglasses up his nose,
"Well, in that case. Uh… what time is it?"
The receptionist pointed to a clock on the wall,
"One fifteen P.M."
Kuai delved into his trouser pockets – the same clothes he'd been wearing yesterday. He pulled out a small sheet of paper, cello-taped lots of times to stop it ripping. He ran his fingers down the grid.
"Can the car drive me to my history lesson? I'm meant to be there now."
Kuai was still wearing the oversized jacket and sunglasses when he walked into Mr Martin's history lesson half-an-hour after it had started.
"Tao!" Mr Martin said sharply, "What time do you call this? And what are you wearing?!"
Kuai blinked a little sleepily,
"I just woke up. It's my brother's jacket, but I like it." He took a cookie out his pocket and stuffed it in his mouth.
The outrage on Mr Martin's face went through various curious stages, until it faded to faint anxiety.
"Your… your brother's?
"Uh huh." Kuai said around his mouthful. He pulled a worksheet over that was lying on his desk and began reading.
Mr Martin's objections seem to disintegrate, and suddenly he didn't seem that concerned about Kuai's attire or tardiness.
Kuai sat and listened as Mr Martin talked about empires and trade and wars. He could be talking about just the gangs here in Hong Kong, he thought, and his attention drifted to window, where the trees on the hillside were putting out their first tentative blossoms. A movement out the corner of his eyes drew him back to the history lesson.
Two rows away Nianzu was giving him a look of cold, calculated hatred. He couldn't make eye contact with Kuai through his dark sunglasses, so instead Kuai could see him glaring at his jacket, at his face, even at his worksheet and his unused pencil.
When the bell rang Nianzu hissed at him as he shouldered passed,
"You think you're really something don't you, Tao."
Kuai frowned as Nianzu stalked off down the corridor.
At break time there was a cold wind threatening to shake off the early blossoms on the trees. Kuai watched young petals skate on rippled puddles. His mind was in a thousand places and nowhere in particular when he heard footsteps approach him.
Nianzu's steps cut up reflections and he stamped through the puddles towards Kuai. The friends who were always at his side were a way off, following only with their eyes, muttering to each other and folding their arms. Kuai's heart sunk, pent-up frustration was steaming off Nianzu. There was black challenge in his eyes. Kuai regarded it sadly.
"You." Nianzu started. "You think you can do whatever you like!"
Kuai thought about this, but didn't have an answer, so just stood quietly.
"I know your brother spoke to my father," Nianzu hissed, "You better be glad he did. He saved you from me."
"Are you sure?"
Nianzu squinted at Kuai, confused at the reply,
"What?" He said.
"Are you sure he wasn't saving you from me?" Kuai said it so plainly and evenly, that Nianzu immediately glanced around to see who had heard. There was no one in earshot.
"You upstart little-… your brother maybe be Triad, but my father-"
"I'm not talking about my brother or your father. Just us here and now." Kuai's words weren't angry or provocative, just simple and unadorned. He took a step forward. Nianzu took a step back. Kuai's hands hung at his side, he moved his fingers in a soft, almost imperceptible gesture. A fine silvery mist wisped forth, hardening as a small patch of ice behind Nianzu. Kuai took another step forward. Nianu matched him and he feet went out from under him, grip lost on the ice. He fell hard on the ground. His eyes were dark and wild as he looked up at Kuai from the floor. Kuai gave him a long plain look. It wasn't a threatening look, just one that intimated that power had been restrained.
Nianzu's friends nudged each other and began to walk over quickly. From the other side of the playground, Elizabeth and Steven saw what was happening and hurried across the wet concrete. Elizabeth was wearing her hair in a functional bun, positioned so that someone wouldn't have much leverage over her head if they pulled her hair. Steven was walking with his shoulders back. It gave him a new posture, and between that and Kuai and Elizabeth calling him Steven, the name Qingwa had almost completely dropped from his peers' lips.
"Everything OK, Tao?" Steven asked. Nianzu's friends hovered, close, but reluctant to come nearer now that Kuai had backup.
"Of course." Kuai said, he gave Steven a smile, and then turned it on Nianzu, "Nianzu and I were discussing how best to fall. Nianzu did quite well there, breaking the fall with his hands, but its best to use the whole soft underpart of both forearms. And to try and roll a little rather than falling statically. If you roll with the fall it'll take some of the momentum out of the impact. But not straight back – roll straight and your spine is grating on the concrete. Best to go at an angle – shoulder to hip if you can."
"Oh!" Steven's eyes were bright with new knowledge. He crouched down and rolled back, on the ground, slapping his arms out as he did. "Like this?"
"Let me try!" Elizabeth sat down in a puddle to try, but she didn't seem to mind getting wet in order to have a go.
"That's good," Kuai offered. Nianzu's friends were frowning in confusion and shuffling at the strange turn of events. "You can roll all the way back too," Kuai explained, "but that's maybe more risky, since you could hit your head."
"Show us, Tao!" Elizabeth said from her puddle.
"It's probably not the best time now." He extended a hand to Nianzu, "Want another try?"
Nianzu stared at the hand. He looked at Steven and Elizabeth sitting on the ground with him, then up at his peers still standing uncertainly. He looked at Kuai, and saw hard lines in his face, ready to take a stand, but also an openness and a genuiness, offering him a way out of his humiliating position. Nianzu took the hand uncertainly. Kuai pulled him up.
Everyone went quiet.
The ice patch Nianzu had slipped on had melted to another windswept puddle.
Nianzu cleared his throat,
"So, you can do a full backwards breakfall?" His voice grew in confidence, "Show us then."
Kuai took a breath. He let himself fall back, slapped out an arm as he hit the floor and rolled hip to shoulder, tucking his head under, and moving with the fall in a single fluid motion. He finished crouched on two feet, then stood upright.
"Neat!" Said Nianzu, and he sounded as awed as he had the first time Kuai had told him about intestines and how they went on forever and looked like worms.
Author Note: I like the idea that Kuai never needs to prove superiority in order to know where he stands with someone. It's not the excerising of power that makes him strong but the restraint. He could hurt people but lots of the time he doesn't need to. Whereas for Bi-Han hurting people keeps his head in order and stops him feeling like he's falling apart.