Reckless, Nezumi chastised himself. Just because he was a victor didn't mean he could go mouthing off to every Capitol citizen who struck a sore spot. That's what got me into this mess in the first place.
Even still, Nezumi felt a spike of spiteful satisfaction at leaving Shion gaping in his wake. Then he walked straight into Fox and the feeling died.
Fox and his companion stood in sharp relief to the colorful partygoers, Fox in his black three-piece suit and the other man in his white ensemble. They looked like some kind of deadly comedy act, and they were smiling at Nezumi like he was their next punch line.
"Mr. Singer," Fox said, "we've been looking for you. I wanted to introduce you to Argus Rex." Fox gestured to the man beside him.
"Pleasure to meet you," Argus said with a nod. He thankfully did not initiate a handshake, but the smile playing in his eyes was just as discomfiting. "I was fortunate enough to be head Gamemaker this year. I hope my arena was to your liking?"
"It was adequate," Nezumi answered. "I wish the weapons were a little more varied, but happily I was resourceful enough to make do."
Fox pursed his lips and turned toward the Gamemaker. "I thought your arena was inspired. I especially enjoyed the city aspect."
Argus shrugged a shoulder. "Thank you, Xeros. I was quite pleased with it myself. Although, I suppose Mr. Singer didn't have much chance to enjoy its nuances. He hid for the majority of the Games…" Argus turned back to Nezumi. "Not that I'm upset by that; your tactics gave me valuable data for next year."
Nezumi didn't have any response to that, so he just smiled and nodded.
Something dark green streaked by in his periphery and Nezumi's heartbeat sped, despite his rational mind telling him it was no danger. He glanced to the side, trying to appear calm. When he found the source of the movement, his skin still prickled, but for a different reason.
One of the servers was stooping to the floor, mopping a puddle of vomit up as quickly and covertly as he could manage. Nezumi recognized what he was on sight: an Avox. As traitors to Panem, they had their tongues cut out and were forced to obey every whim of the Capitol. There were a handful of them—identifiable by their forest green uniforms—serving at the banquet, probably to remind everyone to stay in line. It even looked like all the Avoxes at the party were former Capitol citizens. Some had vestiges of tattoos and the one nearest to Nezumi had no eyebrows. Nezumi guessed he had lasered them off in a fit of fashion some time before his arrest.
It was distasteful to see them pandering to the very people they hated enough to put them in their position. I guess that makes two of us, Nezumi thought bitterly. He tore his eyes away from the Avox and found Fox staring intently at him. There was a calculating look in his eye that made Nezumi instantly alert.
"So," Fox started again, "about that little outburst in the Games."
Outside, Nezumi remained impassive, but inside he was a conflicting mess of hot and cold. He had hoped that this had been forgotten, but he should have known better than to be hopeful.
"I understand you were affected by that young girl's death, but I hope there will be no more episodes like that in the future."
The head Gamemaker had ostensibly become distracted by something on the dance floor, but Nezumi knew he was listening.
"I hope you don't judge me on that incident," Nezumi said slowly. He had to be careful with the measure of emotion in his voice. He needed to appear apologetic, even ashamed, but not guilty. "I was under a lot of stress at the time."
The President frowned, and Nezumi knew whatever he expected to hear, Nezumi failed to give it to him. Fox turned and flagged over the eyebrowless Avox. The man approached with downturned eyes and held out a tray loaded with champagne flutes.
"Look at me," Fox said. The Avox raised his head obediently. He had to; Avoxes couldn't refuse direct orders. Fox smiled indulgently at him. "Tell me a joke."
The Avox froze. His eyes darted from Fox to Argus to Nezumi in a flurry of panic—and pain. The tray the man was holding began to shake and Nezumi noticed his free hand was curled into a fist at his side. He was missing a few fingers. Nezumi grit his teeth.
Argus chuckled lightly under his breath and Fox's smile broadened. Fox reached forward and took a champagne flute. "Never mind. Leave us."
The Avox turned slowly and walked off, still shaking.
"The districts are very different from the Capitol, Mr. Singer," Fox observed, sipping his champagne. "Here, people can't say anything they want to. Especially not when they're stressed." He raised his eyebrows a fraction. "Do you see what I'm getting at?"
"Yes, I think I do," Nezumi deadpanned.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the Gamemaker frown, but he didn't give a flying fuck what Argus Rex and his ridiculous name thought of his tone. Fox just smiled.
"Excuse me," Nezumi said. "I just remembered I promised that young lady a dance."
Nezumi pivoted and stalked toward the first young lady he saw, which happened to be a girl quite close to his age. She was perched on the edge of a chaise lounge, politely pretending to listen to the elderly, heavily feathered woman beside her.
"Do you want to dance?" Nezumi asked roughly. Gran would've screamed herself hoarse if she saw him acting with such a hideous lack of restraint.
Both the girl and her companion started. The girl's electric blue hair was artfully curled to frame her petite face, and her large brown eyes stared up at him with confusion. The confusion dissipated as she realized who he was.
"Sure," she said, and then turned to the older woman. "Would you excuse me, Grandma?"
The old lady smiled cheerily and waved her forward. The girl rose, checked her dress skirts to ensure everything was in order, and strode out onto the dance floor without waiting for him to lead her.
She didn't smile at him, but her face showed a pleasant expression, despite Nezumi's obvious sullenness. This was a well-bred Capitol lady, to be sure, and blessedly she wasn't the fluttering, frothing type that Nezumi had hitherto experienced. It gave him a chance to reconstruct his composure in peace.
"To what do I owe this honor?" the girl asked after a few minutes of dancing.
Nezumi weighed his answer and decided on, "I've spent most of this night talking to bigwigs and politicians. I thought it was about time I enjoyed the company of a beautiful woman."
The girl arched an eyebrow at him, not quite believing, but playing along nevertheless. "That's a high compliment from the man of the hour. And did you ever plan to ask the name of the 'beautiful woman' with whom you're dancing? Or do you prefer to part strangers with the women you meet?"
Nezumi smirked. "My apologies. What's your name?"
"Sapphire," she sniffed, "but I prefer Safu. I won't bother giving you my last name since, one, you won't recognize it, and two, I know you don't care because you're obviously using me as a distraction."
The girl glared a challenge at him. Nezumi wasn't sure what to make of her words. Were they a flirtation, an accusation?
Always better to treat it like a joke.
"I already admitted to that, didn't I? You're my getaway from Capitol politics. But if that bothers you, I can bring you back to your grandma."
The fire in Safu's eyes dulled. She shrugged a shoulder. "No, I was also looking for a distraction. Besides, now that we've started, we have to finish, or the tabloids will speculate too much."
As they took a turn around the dance floor Nezumi saw what she meant; there were several cameramen and photographers scattered around the edges, taking furtive shots at them and the couples around them. Wonderful, thought Nezumi and continued the next minute looking appropriately into the dance.
"Have you met any of your sponsors yet?" Safu asked as the music slipped seamlessly into another song.
Nezumi glanced down at her. "One. Why? Were you one?"
"Me? No, I don't pay much attention to the Games..." She paused. "Which sponsor?"
"Said his name was Shion."
Safu's face lit with recognition, but it was an odd look, a mixture of relief and disapproval.
"A friend of yours?" Nezumi hazarded. Safu furrowed her brow and he chuckled. "Now who's obvious? Is Shion's last name another I wouldn't recognize?"
"No, you definitely wouldn't know his," she said with a frown.
Hm… Something was off. Nezumi weighed his curiosity against her reticence.
Safu went quiet again for a moment, and then asked, "Did he tell you which gift was his?"
"Does it matter?"
Safu's mouth tightened at the corners. "It does, actually."
It was Nezumi's turn to furrow his brow. Her dark eyes fixed on him expectantly. "He didn't say."
Safu's frown deepened, but she didn't ask or share anything more, and Nezumi couldn't decide whether it was worth prying further.
The song ended, and Safu stepped away from him. "It was a pleasure," she said with a perfunctory nod.
Nezumi felt somewhat used as he watched her return to her smiling grandmother. He pressed his lips together to prevent himself from sighing and forced himself to socialize with a few other members of the party. Luckily, the majority of the Capitol citizens were painfully vapid and powerfully drunk, so conversation was easy and limited. After about two hours, Nezumi decided he had done enough and escaped toward the bathroom.
Once the door closed behind him, Nezumi released the sigh he had been holding in. Gran despised sighs. She said they were dangerous and a waste of breath, and she was right to a point. Sighing didn't solve any of his problems or cure his burgeoning headache. But there was some sense of solace in it and he felt better afterwards.
Like everything else in the mansion, the bathroom was elaborate. The powder room lay before him, complete with couches and full-length mirrors, although, thankfully, no one was using them at the moment. Nezumi shook his head and turned the corner toward the sink and toilet area.
One other person was in the bathroom. He had white hair and froze when he saw Nezumi in the mirror. Nezumi wanted to sigh all over again, but pointedly ignored Shion and went about his business. He was aware of Shion's eyes following him as he crossed to the sink at the opposite end of the room.
Nezumi hastily dried his hands on a scented towel, threw it into the basket provided, and headed for the door.
"You're right," Shion's voice rang out behind him.
Nezumi paused on the threshold and glanced back.
"I didn't care about Sylva, at least not at the beginning. I felt bad for her when she was reaped, but I barely noticed her until she died. Even if I did notice her before… I wouldn't have sponsored her. There can only be one winner; we all know that."
Nezumi turned around to face him. Shion's dark eyes bored into his, and Nezumi realized he was no longer wearing his contacts.
"But you're also wrong," Shion said. "I'm not unsympathetic, and I don't enjoy seeing children from the districts die. I hate it."
Nezumi scowled. Shion's words still rang hollow to his ears. But no matter how little they meant to him, Nezumi was not unaware of the danger of the words spoken aloud. He could feel the conditioned tightness in his stomach, the paranoid prickle behind his neck as invisible eyes and ears leaned their way.
Shion seemed to feel the same skittishness at that moment, because he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial murmur. But his eyes still blazed, and his words held heat.
"I know you don't believe me, and I don't blame you. I'm not blameless. It's too easy to ignore the tributes, to forget that they're people—children—and we're sentencing them to death. We've grown accustomed to it. We've learned to ignore it, because it happens every year and there's nothing we can do but watch. I see it here and in the districts. Everyone just… turns themselves off when the Games start."
Shion sighed and turned his face aside. Nezumi watched his jaw tighten into a grim line. Shion stared down his reflection in the mirror until the frustration tattered and turned worn.
"But when I saw you singing to Sylva," Shion continued, "when I saw the anger and pain on your face, I remembered how ugly the Games are. I remembered that every year the Capitol takes twenty-four children from their families, and only one gets to go home. So I made the decision that if only one was going to survive this year, I wanted it to be you."
Nezumi felt very still. He realized that his scowl had slackened into a frown at some point. The person before him was very different from the faltering youth he spoke with at the start of the night. Then he had been overbright and ridiculous; now he seemed fuzzy around the edges.
Shion turned back to Nezumi, and Nezumi felt itchy under the quiet magnitude of his gaze. "That's why I sponsored you," Shion said, his voice clear and strong once more. "It wasn't because I thought it would be fun, or because you're attractive, or even because I thought you deserved it, because not one of those children's lives was more important than the others. But if we needed a winner, I wanted it to be the only person left who still felt something."
A strange turbulent soup of feelings stirred in Nezumi's chest that he didn't know what to do with, so he just frowned deeper. Shion tensed, apparently interpreting the look negatively.
"The first-aid kit," Nezumi said after a moment.
Shion nodded once. Nezumi felt both heavy and hollow as the pieces slid into place. The first aid kit and the note were Shion's doing. He had saved his life when the rest of the Capitol had left him for dead. Nezumi really did owe him a thank you.
Nezumi crossed his arms and cleared his throat.
The door to the bathroom swung open and the pressure in the room popped like fine champagne. Shion startled badly and took a step back into a sink, bumping his hip audibly.
A man appeared at Nezumi's elbow and traded glances between Shion's pained, reddening face and Nezumi. He nodded once at Nezumi and then headed toward the bathroom stall.
Nezumi realized he had lingered too long. He took a step out of the doorway, toward the exit, but his eyes stayed on Shion and Shion watched him back from beneath the fringe of his bangs. Nezumi paused with the door held open, nodded at him once, and left.
On the way back to District 7, Nezumi couldn't forget the answering look of relief on Shion's face.
