Shion thought cleaning the underground room was backbreaking business, but it was child's play compared to washing dogs.
Books, and dust, and spiderwebs were stationary things. They waited patiently for you to clean them, and if you got too tired, you could lay down the broom and duster and pick them up the next day without any consequences.
Dogs, however, were living creatures and, as Shion soon discovered, extremely hard to wrangle, and prone to mischief. They would not wait to be washed, and you could spend half an hour cleaning one, only to turn around and see that it had rolled around in mud and undone all your hard work. To do the job properly, one had to be quick, and firm, and ready to dole out head and chin scratches at the most trying of times.
Before Shion came to volunteer for Inukashi, he had known very little about dogs. No. 6 allowed citizens to own them, but they were hardly seen outside of homes, and they were never of a breed that got too large. Since coming to West Block, Shion discovered that dogs came in all shapes, colors, and sizes, and their personalities were just as variable.
Most dogs in Inukashi's care were of a kindly, excitable, or lax disposition, and those took to Shion quickly. Some of the dogs, though—a few of the very big and a few of the very small—were skittish or suspicious, and those refused to come close enough for Shion to woo or wash them. Inukashi told him to ignore those dogs; they'd wash them some other time.
"Shion," Inukashi growled. "What are you doing?"
"Uh…" Shion paused in massaging soap suds into a medium sized dog's matted fur. "Washing?"
"Yeah, for too long! You've been soaping that guy forever." Inukashi flung a hand at him, flicking a spattering of water droplets through the air.
Shion and Inukashi had set up in the rubble-strewn plaza just outside the hotel early that morning. The sky was the dull, rough color of oyster shells, and the bleached stones around them gave off an air of solemnity that was at odds with the happy dawdling of the dogs and Inukashi's sharp, ever critical demeanor.
They'd been washing for a few hours now, and both of their pants were soaked at the hems with dirty dog water. Each sported their own array of soap suds as well; Inukashi had some smeared over their nose and streaked in the strands of their tied back hair, while Shion could feel bubbles crinkling just behind his ear and in the crooks of his elbows.
"Rinse him off and move on to the next," Inukashi grumbled, trying and failing to rub their nose on the shoulder of their shirt. Their hands were occupied in the perfunctory scrubbing of a small, old dog. "Do you see how many dogs are out here? At this rate, we'll be washing tomorrow and the next day, too!"
"Sorry, Inukashi… I guess I got carried away."
Shion ran his fingers through the chest fur of his dog, and it closed its eyes in ecstasy. It was obviously enjoying the attention, and he felt bad about cutting its wash short. He sighed, picked up the bucket beside him, and poured the clean water over the dog.
"But I thought we'd want the dogs to be extra clean," Shion said as he began to work the soap out of the dog's hair, "since you rent them out to people."
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"Well, you wouldn't want your customers sleeping with dirty dogs."
"They already do that; they've been doing that. And my customers are dirty, too, so what do they care?"
"Oh. Well, I guess…"
In truth, he had been hoping to impress Inukashi with his superior dog washing ability. There was something about the abrasive, no nonsense preteen that made Shion want to gain their approval. But they only seemed to find his thoroughness annoying.
Come to think of it, they're kind of like a smaller, angrier Nezumi. Shion wondered if all West Block residents were so difficult to please.
Shion toweled the dog down and gave it a firm pat on its backside. "All done. Sorry it was so short, but try to stay clean for a bit, okay?"
The dog stared at him and Shion swore he could read disappointment in its eyes. It huffed and stalked away, and Shion was left feeling chastised and bereft.
When he turned to call over the next dog, he found Inukashi staring a hole through the side of his face. Shion had been catching the tail ends of their searching looks all morning. He had taken extra care to keep his hair tucked away under his purple beanie, but he thought, perhaps, that they were still thinking about whether he was an infection danger.
"It's crazy that Nezumi associates with you," Inukashi finally said. "You sound like his worst nightmare; always so goody-two-shoes, and caring about other people and shit. Why does he put up with you?"
Shion took a moment to consider his answer. He couldn't speak for Nezumi, but he had his own experiences with him to inform his opinion. Nezumi was rough around the edges, but he wasn't all edges.
"Nezumi's… He's kind. He tries hard to keep people from seeing it, and he'd throw a fit if you ever said it to his face, but he is."
Inukashi's eyebrows shot up. "What a load of crap," they scoffed. "The only kindness Nezumi's ever shown is to the dead."
Shion frowned but shrugged. Inukashi and Nezumi seemed to hate each other, and he didn't think anything he said would change that.
Inukashi dropped their sponge into the bucket. Soapy water splashed onto their pants, but they took no notice. "Where'd he pick you up, anyway? The fan club?"
"Nezumi has a fan club?"
"Eve sure as hell does."
Shion tilted his head, but before he could ask more, a large dog bounded over, covered from snout to tail in mud. Inukashi launched into a fantastic bout of swearing, and wrestled the dog into the middle of the washing zone.
"How many times do I have to tell you to stay out of the river?" Inukashi growled.
The dog panted apologetically.
"Here, I got it." Shion took the bucket from Inukashi and dumped it over the dog's head, careful to shade its eyes from the water. "There we go," he cooed as he massaged the worst of the muck from the fur on its head. "There's a good boy."
The dog's tail thumped on the floor, flinging mud into Shion's face and onto Inukashi's stomach. The dogkeeper made a disgusted noise, but Shion just laughed and rubbed his cheek on the least dirtied part of his shirt. He had to be gentle when he got close to his left eye, though, because it was bruised from his mishap with Nezumi's gun recoil.
Shion never knew you could get a black eye from hitting your nose, but apparently you could, and it looked nasty. Nezumi said he looked badass, but Shion was pretty sure he had been mocking him.
A cool, clean river ran just behind the hotel, and Shion had to make several trips back and forth to get the amount of water needed to reclaim the dog's white fur from the muck. Shion washed the dog as thoroughly as he could manage, then gave it a few chin scratches and sent it on its way.
Inukashi's dark eyes were on him again when he looked up. "Who are you to Nezumi?" There was something strange in their voice that Shion couldn't quite place.
"What do you mean?"
"Nezumi never brings people around here. Especially not people like…"
They gestured up and down at Shion. Shion raised an eyebrow.
"You know," Inukashi said, looking frustrated. They dumped a bucket of water over the nearest soapy dog's head and sent it on its way with bubbles still clinging to its tail.
Shion frowned again, deeper this time.
"Oh, come on. You look like you couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag! I have puppies more ferocious than you. So what're you doing with Nezumi?"
Shion's first instinct was to say it was complicated, but he knew Inukashi would not accept that answer. But it was complicated. Shion wasn't sure how to describe who he was to Nezumi, and Nezumi to him. They had met by chance and had formed an inextricable connection since.
For Shion's part—since Nezumi counseled him time and again about "using his language properly"—he would say that Nezumi was an irreplaceable person. He wouldn't throw around words like "love," because Nezumi had thrown that confession back in his face. But, privately, he owned that he was attracted to Nezumi and would like to be more than deadweight or a nuisance to him.
Whether Nezumi felt anything for him beyond reluctant obligation, Shion still couldn't say with certainty.
"He's helping me look into something," Shion said, which was vague and personal enough to resemble the truth.
"Helping you?" Inukashi's dark eyes bored into Shion's. "What are you paying him?"
"What? Nothing; it's not like that. But like I said, I'm trying to get a job, so I can contribute."
"Then you have something he wants to trade for? Or…" Inukashi's eyes flashed. "Do you have something on him? If you have dirt on Nezumi, I'd be willing to pay for it. Name your price."
"I'm not blackmailing him, Inukashi, and I'm not bribing him either."
"Then what is it?" Inukashi howled. A few of the dogs lifted their heads at the outburst. "Nezumi doesn't just help people out! He doesn't do anything for free!"
Shion smiled a little. "I don't think it's for free; Nezumi's definitely paying for it."
Inukashi gaped at him. Shion wasn't sure if they thought his joke was offensive or ridiculous, but it was easy to see that they were disbelieving.
"How many more dogs?" he asked.
Inukashi closed their mouth and scowled. "Look around, airhead. A shit ton."
There were indeed a whole lot more dogs wandering around the plaza, and several were noticeably dirty. Shion's shoulders began to ache in anticipation, but he didn't say a word and went back to the river to fill two more pails.
He paused there to take a long drink. Shion knew this little river was the same one that provided water to Nezumi's underground room, and to the town. The water was delicious; he never imagined that a place like West Block would have a source that tasted so cool and pure. Water had never tasted so good in No. 6. But then, maybe it was only because he never appreciated it properly before.
Shion came back to Inukashi and the horde of dogs, and they washed in silence for a time.
"What's your relationship to Nezumi?" Shion asked. "I'm guessing you're not friends?"
Inukashi looked up in the middle of squeezing out a rag, and the rung-out water splashed onto their ratty shoes.
"Friends?" They said the word like it was a horrid, pestilent thing.
"You two aren't close, I guess. You only have a working relationship."
"God, what a weird question," Inukashi muttered. "Of course we only have a working relationship. No one has 'friends' in West Block." They rolled their eyes and threw the rag into an empty bucket without ever putting it to work. "Nezumi gets me stuff, I pay him. He needs something from me, he pays me. That's it. There's nothing personal about it."
As Inukashi finished, though, a strain of uncertainty slipped into lines of their mouth. One of the dogs, a bony Labrador mix with a white sock on its right forepaw, trotted over and rested its head on Inukashi's lap. Inukashi scratched it behind its ears. The troubled look deepened.
"What is it?" Shion asked.
"Hm? Oh. Well…" Inukashi brushed their bangs back from their forehead, then shifted in their crouch. "Sometimes Nezumi sings for me—for the dogs, I mean. But I pay him for that, too."
Shion perked up. "He sings for you?"
"For the dogs," Inukashi repeated, impatient. "Sometimes when a dog gets old—or if it gets hurt, like bitten by a zombie, or beaten by some piece of shit kid or something—they don't die quickly. They suffer, ya know? Can't walk or are bleeding, and there's nothing I can do to help them. Then I call Nezumi over so he can sing to them. He's got… I don't know what to call it. He's different when he sings. When you hear his voice, it feels like everything's going to be alright, and you just want to lie down and close your eyes. Nothing else matters, and you let it carry you away like you're drifting on the wind.
"And that's what happens with the dying dogs; the song takes their souls and lifts them up and out. They stop crying and they relax and just lie there, and you think they've just gone to sleep, but they're dead. They pass away like that, all quiet and peaceful."
Inukashi's voice had become soft. Their hands were still, resting on the Labrador mix's head, and the dog, too, had settled, as if rocked to sleep by the gentle memory of Nezumi's voice.
Shion tried to imagine it. He had only heard Nezumi sing once, on that first night he slept in Nezumi's bed, but the experience stuck with him. The lullaby had been beautiful, Nezumi's voice otherworldly. He could easily imagine a hurt or dying dog relaxing under its sway and drifting away peacefully. It seemed like a nice way to go.
"It was like that with my mum," Inukashi said. "She had been attacked by a couple of zombies, and got all torn up. Her front legs were broken, and her one ear was chewed off, and she was frothing and bleeding." Inukashi's face twisted. "There was nothing I could do. Even if I could fix her legs, she had been bitten. She was gonna die soon anyway, and she was gonna suffer."
Shion canted his head to the side. "You said your mother's front legs were broken?"
"Yeah, her front legs. She was a dog."
"Oh. So you were raised by dogs." Shion studied Inukashi and then the dog resting on their lap. "I see," he said, smiling. "So these dogs are your family. I didn't know."
Inukashi clicked their tongue. "Not all of the dog's here are related to me. Just a few."
"You'll have to point out which ones. I'd like to introduce myself to them properly."
Inukashi laughed, but cut it off abruptly and they went back to looking troubled.
"What is it? Is something wrong?"
"No. It's just… You didn't laugh about my mum being a dog. And it made me remember..."
Shion waited patiently for them to finish the thought.
"The only other person who didn't laugh…" Inukashi's expression pinched in agitation. "That person was…"
Something behind Inukashi's shoulder caught Shion's attention. "Nezumi!"
Inukashi glanced up, startled. "How did you know?"
"Hm?" Shion blinked at them. "What? It's Nezumi." He pointed.
Inukashi twisted around and scowled when they spotted the dark-clad figure approaching. They glared at Shion's grinning face and mumbled, "Yeesh. I've never seen anyone so puppylike in my entire life."
Judging by Inukashi's love of dogs, he decided to take the comment as at least half a compliment.Shion clambered to his feet and called out.
Nezumi raised an eyebrow at him. He walked slowly towards them, his hands tucked into the pockets of his leather jacket. Shion admired the way the light wind tousled Nezumi's hair and pinkened his cheeks.
Shion wiped his hands off on his pant legs and hurried to meet Nezumi halfway. "What are you doing here?"
"I was passing by, and thought I'd come and enjoy the sight of you and Inukashi half drenched and covered in dog filth." Nezumi eyed them both up and down. "It's exactly as I imagined. How charming."
"Fuck off," Inukashi growled.
Shion glanced down at his clothes. His blue cardigan was mud-splotched and damp from a combination of water, soap, and sweat. His pants weren't much better. But Shion only shrugged; getting dirty was par for the course when one was doing manual labor.
"If you just came to gawk and make fun, it would be better if you helped instead," Shion said.
"Me? Help? Why would I do that?"
"There are so many dogs left that need washing, and you're not doing anything but standing around."
"You volunteered yourself for this; I'm not lifting a finger to help you."
"So you're just going to stand there and watch us work? That doesn't make any sense. You might as well make yourself useful."
"It's called schadenfreude, Shion. It brings me pleasure to watch you muck around in the mud while I sit back and enjoy the show."
Shion uttered a loud, uneven sigh. "You're being unreasonable. Don't you think, Inukashi?" Shion turned to them, but Inukashi was staring at Nezumi.
Nezumi's face shuttered up. Shion wasn't sure what to do with the glint in Inukashi's eyes, or the tense set to Nezumi's shoulders, so he pulled his beanie off, ruffled his hair, and put it back on just to have something to do.
"Let's get back to washing," Shion suggested, and reached for a wet rag.
"Leave it," said Nezumi. "We're going."
"Hey, wait a minute!" Inukashi jumped to their feet. "We're not done yet! There are loads of dogs left."
"That's too bad. Shion's only here on a volunteer basis, so he can leave whenever, and I say he leaves now. Shion?"
Nezumi gave him one of his looks. The kind that left the final choice up to Shion, but that promised days of irritated sulking if his loyalties didn't reside with Nezumi.
"If I'm the volunteer, shouldn't I be the one to say when I'm leaving?" Shion mumbled. But he dropped the rag into the water pail and offered Inukashi an apologetic smile. "Sorry, Inukashi… I'll come back tomorrow to finish the rest, okay?"
Inukashi scoffed and threw their hands up. "Whatever. Both of you get lost, before I sic the dogs on you."
The dogs lifted their heads curiously at their mention.
Shion followed Nezumi out of the ruins. His stomach tightened in guilt for leaving Inukashi in the middle of the job. He had hoped to be friends with them, and he seemed to be making headway until Nezumi rudely commandeered him.
Shion was about to bring his misgivings up when he realized Nezumi wasn't taking him on the normal path through town. They were walking along the outskirts of West Block, close to the ramshackle fence.
"Memorize this way," Nezumi said. "It may seem more dangerous than going through town, but it's actually safer and faster. Zombies are slow and dumb; better to chance them than get ambushed and robbed by a gang of starving children in town. Or molested by prostitutes."
Shion shot him a dry look, but Nezumi didn't see it. He looked straight ahead; his expression was grim.
"Nezumi?"
Nezumi drew to a stop and turned to Shion. He reached into his holster and pulled out the Glock 17 Shion had practiced with a few days earlier.
"Here. It's loaded with real bullets. We'll buy you a holster on the way home."
"Wait, what?" Shion stared down at the gun. Even though it was silver polymer, it seemed to glint in the afternoon sunlight. "Can't you hold onto it?"
Nezumi stared blankly at him. "The gun is for you to protect yourself. Me holding onto it completely defeats the purpose."
"Well." Shion bit his lip. "I don't go out without you anyway, so it should be fine?"
The grey in Nezumi's eyes flashed like lightning. "I won't always be around to protect you, Shion."
Shion's face heated. For a moment, he felt like the Nezumi he knew was gone, replaced by a keen-eyed stranger. He didn't like it. He wanted to go back ten minutes to when he and Nezumi were fighting in the courtyard, to when Nezumi snapped back in exasperation and looked at him with expectation in his eyes.
The person before him was distant, hard. Someone Shion had only seen flashes of in the last three months. He did not like to meet him face to face.
"Nezumi…" His voice shook. "Why are you—"
"Shion." Nezumi's cold gaze killed the breath in Shion's lungs. "I'm leaving."