I pardon the delay. It's been a busy time.
She smelled of blood.
It was such a pungent, metallic, familiar scent that Ken picked up from Juri in an instant. He saw the bits of skull fragments and brain matter crushed to a smear under her feet. The blood all over her clothes. He saw the knife wound in her thigh. Her broken nose, the stab to her collarbone. The hollow look in her eyes whenever she knew, he was paying attention to her. Her shuddering and how she curled into herself. He thought to ask but that wasn't exactly fair to her. That she had cried was an indicator of how her mental state was. And Ken knew how fragile the human mind could be.
He was neither angry nor disappointed with Juri. He tended to her like he normally would. He fed her and checked her injuries, but the conversations were scant. Yet Ken's fixation on Juri outweighed the concern about Damnd. The man had been captured. Sodom and Retu waited for their price and according to Cammy, they had arrived once they caught wind of the situation and stole the man away. He was the one, she had given up so she could detain the others – the living.
That had resulted in a seventy-two-hour hostage session of Damnd, which Ken was now forced to see the aftermath of in his search for answers. He stood next to the bed and pulled the hood of his jacket over his head, looking out the window to see the afternoon sun cast orange light through the windows. It had been raining for most of the day, so a full-on rainbow arched over the sky.
Ken reached for the keys to the motel room and looked at the couch. Today, the television was quiet. So was Juri's phone. So was Juri, who lay there curled up like a wounded animal. She was awake since her breath fell from her lips in soundless huffs. She had been lying there since the morning after the compound raid. A blanket had been put over her, yet she still shivered.
"I'll be back soon," Ken said with a quiet sigh. She didn't react and his heart broke on her behalf.
He didn't take the keys to the motel with him when he left. He expected her to be gone when he returned. And if she left, he wouldn't blame her. He could only blame himself.
Ken let the Juri-shaped mental wound fester and throb on its own while his mind pivoted to the topic of Damnd, Retu, and Sodom. And the location of the trio; one of the abandoned warehouses in the harbor. The same one, Ken had almost busted into on his own. Now, he stood before its entrance and pushed the door open to nothing but emptiness and a pale-faced Cammy. Noises upstairs made them walk the short distance to the staircase and ascend to the second floor. Right into the smell of lingering viscera.
Strapped up by his wrists with chains, Damnd hung like a pig for the slaughter. He was shirtless with slices and gashes across his chest; some shining red as fresh wounds, others blackened with coagulated blood. His shades were gone, as were his blonde dreadlocks, now replaced with a buzzcut – and a few careless cuts to his scalp. Upon further inspection, he was missing one or two of his fingers.
"Easy now. We did not kill him. We did however extract information from him. Thought you'd like to hear?" Retu asked calmly, apropos of the appalled stares he received and for a moment, Ken's nerves pinched in anticipation.
Cammy breathed long and hard through her nose. Her expression belied nothing, cold and steely like that of a statue. It was the same face she carried during the aftermath of the raid. "Interrogations can be done without the use of excessive violence."
"Of course," Sodom nodded with a lack of surprise. "We are but pragmatic. Not sadistic. The infliction you see is to prove a point like the samurai of old would do. To remind the lowest of the low what we and our former leader Belger stood for. It would seem that only I and Retu remember that purpose."
"Belger?" Cammy narrowed her eyes. "He was ousted from Metro City, was he not? And got sent to prison?"
Retu shook his head.
"He fled to Hong Kong and now uses the region as his base of operations. Storing the weapons from Metro City. Storing drugs from his partner. It would seem that he has dabbled in human trafficking as well. He's a middleman for the trades."
That answer was one Ken felt weirdly positive in answering. Even with the ghost of his past lingering in the back of his mind.
"…With Nayshall."
"Correct. The human cattle are sent with illegal substances from Nayshall and in exchange, they get weapons and explosives," Sodom answered without hesitation or prejudice. Ken felt himself soften – though he shouldn't. But the relief, the excitement was rather relentless. Anything revolving around drugs, weapons, and human goddamn trafficking shouldn't make him feel good.
Damnd began to stir and fluttered his eyes open. His boisterous voice came as a weak murmur without a single word of note. Cammy turned to Ken with her frigid professionalism defrosting a bit. "How are you gonna go to Hong Kong?"
That was a question, Ken couldn't answer so easily. His silence made that obvious. Sodom and Retu looked at each other, unaware or indifferent to Damnd's consciousness, then looked at Cammy, then at Ken when they concluded, correctly, that she'd be unable to provide.
She never spoke of it; Ken figured it out on his own. Even being here, paid leave or not, it would be a blow to her career. She was here, as a friend doing a favor. A favor that went against her own morality. Morality which now began seeping through.
"Provided you leave Belger to us, we can smuggle you in. Come to this location in two week's time," Sodom said, and Cammy stepped forward, taking on the task of advocating for Belger's life when Ken could not. His mind wasn't working as it should.
"On two conditions. You will not step up to take his place. And two. Don't kill him. He poses an international threat."
"The admission of our involvement will do nothing when we have ascended to a place beyond your reach. And besides, we have no interest in trading drugs and unfortunate individuals," Sodom scoffed, leaving a tiny space for a hypothetical but. But weapons. They could use the weapons and the suspicion crawled like a scorpion over Ken's back.
Cammy was not happy but left without a word and Ken had to follow behind her like a schnauzer. Outside, the sun continued to bake the harbor, but the rainbow had vanished. Much like Ken's energy.
He sighed and his voice trembled in a way it hadn't in a long time. "I-I just realized…the optics of this are really, really fucking bad. Like a cosmic threat of something I can't even put into words. Can I live with it once it's all over?"
The story he was to tell Mel from this…what would it be? To clear his name, he mingled with murderers, gang members, smugglers, and human traffickers? It took one to know one?
"Desperate times call for desperate measures. When push comes to shove, it is the mission that matters," Cammy said cooly. But when he looked at her, he saw nothing but warmth in her eyes. Burning away whatever fucked up shit, she had done as an MI6 agent.
Ken shuddered. "…Does the end justify the means?"
"If it's for the benefit of others. For the greater good, you learn to live with it."
It didn't clear Ken's self-awareness, but it was a start. A frank reminder of his conscience. The sins of his actions would be his burden to bear. The price he'd pay in the name of love.
"The fact that you are reacting like you do is a sign of your humanity. You're not them and your goals differ. I wish I had that motivator back then," Cammy continued. Her eyes drifted to a calico cat walking along the pier with a fish in its mouth.
Ken held his tongue but smiled. If he offered words of consolation, she'd cuss him out. Sympathy was not something she desired. Nor did she want to hear platitudes while she gently approached the cat with enticing sounds. She extended her hands and waited for the creature to approach.
"And how is Juri?" Cammy asked once she managed to pick the cat up in her arms.
Ken blanched with discomfort creeping up his neck. "Not well. I don't know what happened, but I can only make guesses."
He knew. He didn't need to guess. His heart just shattered, because the imagination of the grisly scene always turned worse with each time, he thought of it.
Cammy pinned him with a steely stare, calling him out for that fallacy. "You and I both know she killed those men. And she would have killed Damnd too if we didn't ironically save him by hitting him with a car. If he died, that would have put a damper on your mission."
"I…I don't think she intended to go so far…" Ken's defense was weak. He felt weak for saying it. His honesty was like an admission of his growing bias.
"No, I don't think so either. The Juri I know would have walked away, indifferent to the destruction left in her wake. That woman would not have cared about the lives she took. That she is unwell now, tells me that she's changing," Cammy said and put the cat down. It began rubbing against her leg.
"What can I do?" Ken felt himself deflating with that question.
"Continue being good to her. And when she's ready, you should talk to her about the Feng Shui Engine," Cammy crouched to pet the cat again until it purred against her fingertips. She lifted her gaze when Ken stared at her in confusion and added; "Her left eye, Ken. According to S.I.N. documents, it's a biomechanical weapon."
Ken had on occasion wondered about Juri's peculiar mismatching eyes or the tendency for one of them to glow when she fought. To get such an explanation for his musings struck a weird note with him. Suddenly he found himself imagining mad scientists and human experimentation.
"Normally she can control it but with the prison raid and now, I wonder if it's beginning to break down. Or gets affected by her mental state," Cammy continued to mutter to herself. "If she could control it…"
"Should I tell her not to use it?" Ken asked and swallowed at how such a conversation would end.
Relief pooled into him when Cammy shook her head. While, objectively, the world would benefit from remnants of Shadaloo and S.I.N. getting thrown to the abyss, Ken felt a slither of guilt at having to talk with Juri about that. They never talked about S.I.N. or Shadaloo in any deep capacity. Their coexistence wouldn't allow that.
"No. That's not up to us to decide. I do think you should continue sticking around while the journey lasts. By its end, I hope she'll see the world and its people in a different light."
That was a wish, Ken could only pray for.
It was a wish, he wondered how he should consciously work towards when he headed back to the motel room. Juri didn't lie down, but she was where he had left her earlier. She jittered when she felt him look at her.
"So, we're going to Hong Kong," Ken said, quietly handing her one of the cheap convenience store sandwiches and a bottle of sweet peach tea. He opted to sit on the table in front of her. "In two weeks."
Some color returned to Juri's face but her appetite remained at bay. She nodded and inferred whatever had actually occurred at the meeting judging from Ken's light shudder. She gingerly unscrewed the cap to the bottle and took a few sips. At some point, she much of bumped the bottle against a tender part of her face. Her lips pressed together in surprised pain.
Ken took a few bites of his sandwich, but his appetite was waning. So, he just sat with the thing in his hands, staring at the mark of his teeth. "I can't say if this is going to be the end of it or not. It's not over until it's over."
He lifted his gaze to meet hers. Despite the state, she was in, she believed him, and her faith was touching. She was still looking uncertain when he stood up to fetch napkins and a little something he picked up from the store. He didn't account for the overflow of mayo in the sandwiches.
It irked him that Juri had said very little, so he spoke into the silence; "I saw you ran out of pink nail polish the other day."
Ken returned with the napkins and a bottle of pink. It was a shade brighter than her usual color. Almost innocently, Juri looked up at him, bemused and surprised and he smiled when she did so.
"I'm not mad at you, by the way," Ken said into the pause and held her gaze. "I'm just glad you're okay."
Juri swallowed hard, and looked at her lap, unsure of what she was to do with that information. It wasn't one of those things, she had been told very often, was it? He could see it in her face; how it slid past her defenses and mental barriers, maybe already overused. And for the first time in three days, she opened her mouth.
"Fine, whatever, fuck you, I get it!" she hissed and Ken bubbled with mirth for which she glared at him. "What?"
"It's just so nice hearing your voice again," he said and noticed the blush creep over her neck and ears. She clicked her tongue in quiet frustration and snatched the bottle of nail polish to inspect it while Ken consumed the last of his sandwich.
The two weeks passed by in a flash on account of a rhythm. Ken could feel pieces of himself being put back into place. So, he spent the final morning taking Juri to the farm after breakfast. She had asked and her reasoning was curiosity; she probably just expected to observe and nothing else. Juri wasn't keen on parting with her bike, so she drove them to the farm with Ken trying to guide her.
They rolled to a stop in the middle of the courtyard, past the old rusty truck that belonged to the owner. That distinct scent of farmland and livestock replaced the sharp smell of wilderness and wildflowers. It caused Juri to grimace a bit. The barn stood open and braying of animals came from its maw with one actually leaving the building.
Dolly, the owner's dog. She had instantly taken a liking to Ken, barking at him while she ran in his direction. She was medium-sized, white, and black with other colors in between. A true mutt where Ken couldn't point at any breed. Just a dog – but a good one. Dolly's tail wagged to the point where her rear end moved as well. She had stopped barking, opting to lick Ken's hand instead. Her absence would be mourned. Juri stared at the creature with equal discomfort and disgust. Her hands were perfectly nestled in her jacket, so she wasn't exactly overcome with the need to pet a dog.
The door to the farmhouse went open then and a figure stepped out.
"Reuben, you're early," said Rick, the owner of the farm. He was up in the years, a widower with most of his children in the area to help with the farm. He had the help; he just wanted to help the occasional drifter with some odd jobs.
Hereunder Ken – or Reuben as he had called himself this time.
"Thought I'd do some extra work on my final day," Ken rolled his shoulders into a shrug and put his hand on Dolly's soft head.
"The help is always appreciated," Rick nodded and shifted his eyes to Juri as if to ask if she was a new recruit.
Ken hated to disappoint the old man but gestured toward her anyway. "This is my friend. She wanted to tag along and see what I do here."
Rick's shoulders slumped a bit. "Oh! Well, I hope she will like what she sees. There's quite nothing like owning your own farm."
"I'm bit of a city boy myself but I gotta agree with that."
It was an easy morning, dull too when Ken got to work. Greying weather and formless pale clouds. It was effective in aiding Ken with plucking produce from the orchard without the sun baking down on him. It was located behind the farmhouse, behind the backyard. Ken took a basket under his arm and headed to the first of the trees. Even in the pale weather, the apples stood red and vibrant. At this time of year, they were the only produce to be harvested from the orchard.
Pumpkins were but a few months away. Juri quietly observed Ken while he was up the ladder in the tree, snapping a few pictures of him when he climbed back down with a basket of apples. Rick never imposed any rules against worktime snacks, provided there was produce left by the end of the day. Therefore, Ken took one of the apples and tossed it to Juri.
"Am I allowed to?" she asked, looking at the smooth redness. Its surface was glossy enough to reflect the image of her face.
"Since when did you care about the rules?" Ken couldn't help but grin at the sheet of crimson creeping across her ears and cheeks.
She huffed and took a triumphant bite of the fruit. "You're goddamn right!"
They made it across the backyard, munching on an apple each. Which was a good thing as the harvest had been bountiful today. Ken was not and never would be a farmer. He'd rather pull a car through traffic than carrots from the ground.
But there was a part of him that appreciated the simplicity of doing menial, manual tasks, feeding chickens, preparing milking equipment, herding the sheep, harvesting produce, and rotating the animals in their pastures. It emptied his mind, and it provided him with something different than the Eagle Shipping Company.
The apples were left by the doorstep to the farmhouse and Ken took Juri inside the barn. Past empty stables and bundles of hay. He popped open the barrel of seeds and pellets, filled the bucket, and closed the container.
"All right," he said, a little uncertain because he was silent when working usually, but Juri's lack of comment was a strange adjustment. By the sound of rattling feed, the chicken came scurrying, clustered together and clucking in anticipation. He gingerly tossed the feed over them until the bucket was empty. While they ate, he emptied the nests for eggs, eventually standing with his arms full of them.
Juri sneered at the sight. "Ew, there's like bird shit all over them."
"They do get cleaned. Don't worry," Ken put the eggs in a nearby crate. They had been stacked out here for this exact purpose.
"I'm not worried," Juri scoffed. "I'm grossed out. Farm life is gross."
"Good thing I'm the tolerant breadwinner then."
She soured and her cheeks flushed into a pale peach. "I can earn money, Kenta."
"Good," Ken smirked at her, although he didn't mind working to get the time going. "I'll leave you to it when we go to Hong Kong. I'd like to laze around on my phone all day."
She raised her brow and stepped closer until he could smell the flowers off her hair wash. Until he could feel the warmth radiating off her. It was his turn to feel a wave of crimson creep across the back of his neck. She noticed it, because of course she did, and she smiled.
"No farms though," she said, and her statement was so banal, that it hardly matched the mood. Maybe it was deliberate. Maybe it was not.
Ken hoped for the latter and swallowed. The urge to rub the back of his neck began to prick his skin but he worried too much about the eggs. Instead, on a bid to gather some semblance of self-control.
"Duly noted."
Juri be aggressively flirting now that Ken has accepted her after the compound blunder.
And Ken is single now so….