Tinseng cleared the gratitude and fury out of his throat. With a nod—first to the love of his life, then to his first and best friend—he stalked up the stairs with revenge in his heart, ready to do anything to carry out Jinzhao’s order.
They arrived at Hôtel Le Bristol to find Chiboon waiting for them on the sidewalk. His hand held a suite key, and his eyes widened at the sight of Jinzhao. They’d tried to clean him up but had few ways to hide all the blooming injuries; suspicion followed them through the sparkling lobby and stayed fixed as they made themselves as small as possible waiting for the elevator.
“Remember what I said about adventures?” Chiboon asked Cheuk-Kwan, who snorted.
“Yeah. And you’re right: they’re exhausting. Yingtung really had to stay at the fanciest fucking place, didn’t he?”
“I told Yukying we needed to be inconspicuous,” Tinseng agreed, adjusting his collar. “Did she have you use a fake name, at least?”
“She did,” Chiboon said.
“And they didn’t ask for anything else? Nothing special?”
“No, Laurence’s flawless French accent was enough for them, apparently. Just like the hotels back home: no ID, no deposit, just filling out the registration form.”
“Good, good.” Tinseng tried to take heart; this part of the plan, at least, had gone off flawlessly.
“But why does any of this matter?” Chiboon insisted. “Yukying wouldn’t say why.”
“Because they’ll forward our information to the DGSE.”
“The who?”
“The D—the French equivalent of MI6?”
Chiboon shrugged.
Tinseng rolled his eyes. “Hotels forward on the information of any suspicious guests,” he explained. “It’s common practice. They’ll give it to the police and the DGSE, who’ll forward it to any foreign agency with connections to the suspects.”
“We’re suspects now?”
“Chiboon. We’re a large group of Chinese people walking through the door.”
The entire elevator stood in silence a moment, acknowledging the point. Chiboon clicked his tongue.
“Tinseng, you’re so devious. But it’s not like we haven’t been hassled at every port, and we used our real names then. Why all this? And what’s going on with you, anyway? Why is Shan Dao beat up?”
“Save it,” Cheuk-Kwan snapped. Against all odds, Tinseng had to press his lips together to stop a smile. He glanced over at Chiboon to find him hiding his mouth behind his hand. It was a goddamned parody, he thought; Tinseng didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He focused on holding up Jinzhao until they made it to the suite; once Jinzhao was situated on the bed, Cheuk-Kwan left to fetch Yukying, pulling Chiboon out with him.
And then they were alone. Was it only last night he’d kissed Jinzhao’s cheek and told him not to wait up? How arrogant he’d been. The price lay in front of him now, black eye and broken rib to match all the broken pieces inside Tinseng that made no proper human, only whatever people could cobble together from reaching in and pulling out. Jinzhao stared at him from the bed, and saw what? A savior? A curse? I love you, he’d said earlier, and Jinzhao had kissed him like . . . but wouldn’t anyone be happy to be rescued?
The staring was getting to him. With a nervous chuckle, Tinseng fled to the bathroom.
He avoided his face in the mirror. Get us home, Jinzhao had said, as if they held the same definition. In the quiet of starched sheets and plush carpet, would reality sink back in? On the counter heavy glasses were set upside down to protect them from dust. He turned one over and filled it with water, wet a washcloth, then brought the whole ordeal out to the bed.
Neither spoke. Tinseng sat on the bed and began wiping Jinzhao’s face. Most of the blood was quite dry by this point. His hair would have to be washed later. Easier to focus on the nose, though it made Jinzhao wince. Through it all, Jinzhao stared relentlessly. Tinseng looked anywhere but at the gaze he knew would undo him. Where was Cheuk-Kwan anyway? Wasn’t he supposed to be fetching Yukying? If he knew Cheuk-Kwan at all, Tinseng would guess this long break was his brother’s way of saying, in the most roundabout way possible: Get on with it, you dumb bastard. He hated having such a considerate family.
The water was getting too bloody to be useful. He tried to buy himself a reprieve by standing to get a fresh glass.
A hand around his wrist stopped him. There it was.
“Jinzhao. You’re not looking so bad underneath it all. A little rest and you’ll be back to your perfect self, shaming the rest of us with your mere presence.”
“Tinseng.” A note of hurt? Or was he imagining it? He couldn’t confirm; he still couldn’t look. It would be better, he decided, to wait Jinzhao out. This strategy had never worked before, not even once, but there was always a first time.
When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he cracked and whispered, “Why? You didn’t need to do that. Why?”
And now, of all times, he decided to raise his head. There were those burning eyes, the black always overlaying the brown. Only when the sun caught them did the embers glow. But there was no sunlight coming through the closed curtains, and Jinzhao’s gaze would not have lightened even if it was.
“I did what you would have done,” he said.
Tinseng couldn’t refute it—Jinzhao did exactly what he would have done. What could he say now? That he wanted Jinzhao to admit he was right but never act on it? That he hadn’t ever considered how he’d feel if the people he loved acted like him? Anything he thought to say made him sound like a fool or a hypocrite or both. He frowned and rubbed the dried blood above Jinzhao’s ear rougher than he had to.
“They are my family’s injustices,” Jinzhao continued. “I have stood to the side while you sacrificed for me. But it is not right.”
“You really are a righteous person, Jinzhao. It’s very annoying sometimes.”
“No more than you.”
“Eh? Are you calling me annoying?”
“Righteous.”
The heart couldn’t take declarations like that. Not after what the hands still felt from their violence.
Jinzhao added into the silence, “You are wrong.”
