The girl nodded before placing her hand on top to seal their vow. Suu immediately gave her a reassuring squeeze. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she added quickly, hoping she wasn’t too late.

“I don’t mind. And you promised, so…” the girl continued with another nod. “…so, about that Big-bro with the tattooed arm, um, I’ve heard a rumor about him.”

“Oh,” Suu kept a straight face as a sinking feeling twisted in her stomach. “What did you hear? Again, I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

The young girl looked around to make sure the rest of the kids were busy playing a safe distance away before she met Suu’s worried gaze.

“Well, I heard that he…um, he went to jail,” her voice was a low whisper. “He went to jail when he was a kid. That’s what I heard my neighborhood grannies say.”

Suu stood there for several moments as she registered the girl’s words. It felt like getting doused in ice, just like back in the dining hall. But before she could think things through, her thoughts became spoken words. “Did they talk about his crime?”

The young girl began to shake her head from side to side, until she paused. She then looked at Suu as though she’d just remembered something. “I think…it was because he beat someone up. An elder man, I think. But I don’t know the truth.”

———

Hope sinking with the setting sun, Suu sat down on the stone benches by the riverbank, having bid goodbye to the little kids. Her motivation was down in the dumps, and she couldn’t help but feel like an idiot, somehow. Her little ‘investigation’ could count as stalking, in some sense. That made her grimace to the point of physical pain, and it was then that she decided to entirely give up. Wash her hands clean off this case. It wasn’t worth the soap, as far as she could tell.

Maybe everyone had a point when they constantly sent her away with ‘you should probably stay away from him’. Just this once, maybe they were right.

Fox-face could keep his little secret humankind-saving book; at the end of the day it truly was none of her business. In the distance, a bunch of crows cawed into the sunset, and she half-expected one of them to land in front of her and tell her in very concerned bird-language, “Girl you should probably stay away from him.” And if it did happen, she’d probably just sit there and nod, and caw back “yeah, you’re probably right.”

The sun began to look like a red traffic light peaking through growing bands of bluish-gray clouds. Suu took that as a cue to leave, because the last thing she wanted was to end her day with a free shower from the sky.

Getting up, she stretched hard and shook her head in disappointment. She could’ve spent the day helping out at the store, but instead all she knew now was that there was a lot more to Fox-face than what met the eye. A small part of herself wished she knew more. A small part of herself that she cussed out for being such a curious fool. She stared at the red, sinking dot on the horizon again.

A wave of sadness swept over her for a moment, nearly jolting her from the sudden onslaught. Try as she might, her feet refused to move for several moments as the feelings washed over her.

Get a grip, she chided herself as she turned to leave. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ or whatever folks say.

Two steps forward, and she immediately locked eyes with the last person she wanted to meet.

Fox-face stood a little way ahead of her, looking equally surprised at her presence. Suu flinched, scrubbed her eyes, and blinked several times to make sure she really wasn’t hallucinating. When the long-haired human brick-wall barely moved, she figured he was a stubborn one.

“It really is you,” he said slowly, staring and blinking several times. His tone told her that he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “What’re you doing here?”

Suu blinked back; it wasn’t like she could believe it either. She tightened the grip on her bag’s shoulder-straps. “What’re you doing here?!” she bit down her panic.

There was so much she wanted to ask him at that moment, but those were lines she couldn’t cross just yet. Worse, the only thing she could focus on was the fact that he looked a little different—with his hair down and flying in the wind, his eyes wide, and his mouth open ever so slightly.

Oh Gods, I’m going nuts, her eyebrows tented. “This can’t be real,” she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Gods, I’m seriously hallucinating.”

“You’re…what? Excuse me,” his voice hardened, and his face set into a blank stare. “I live in this neighborhood.”

Suu studied his face with an unimpressed expression. “Sounds like something a hallucination would say,” she rolled her eyes. Hallucinations could live in any neighborhood, after all.

Fox-face stared at her for several moments, his lips parting and closing as if he didn’t know what to say. Suu screwed her eyes shut and opened them the way cats slow-blinked at people, hoping he’d disappear the way hallucinations usually did. Not this one, though. Real stubborn, this one.

Definitely going nuts, Suu scolded herself.

A few moments later, Fox-face sighed and mimicked her exact expression. One arm raised in the air, he pointed neatly to a compound up at the top of a hill.

“I live there; in that house over there. And you clearly don’t, since I’ve never seen you around here,” he said, meeting her eyes. “So tell me, what’re you doing here?”

Oh, Suu arched her eyebrows. F—k. Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no-oh-no.

That explained why the kids knew about him, and why the neighborhood grannies seemed to know about his past. Suu wished she could just, jump into the river and swim into the sunset. The emotion that swept over her this time was shame, and her mind began to whirl with possible excuses.

“I, uuhh…” she sank her gaze to where she wrung her hands together. “I was just…”

“You were just what,” his voice deepened, but he sounded more curious than threatening. As soon as she tipped her face up to meet his gaze, she lost control of her words.

“I should probably stay away from you,” she blurted out. Eyes wide with alarm, she slammed her hands to cover her mouth a little too late for comfort.

I should probably shut the f—k up too, she yelled at herself in her mind.

For several nerve-wracking moments, an awkward silence filled the space between them. Suu considered her ‘jumping-into-the-river’ plan again, but her instincts felt frozen-over.

Fox-face looked at her with an unreadable expression; if he felt offended by what she’d said to him, his face didn’t betray it. Gaze locked into hers, he began walking towards her, slow and steady. Her feet nearly twitched to run as he closed the distance between them and leered down at her, the last rays of the sun blazing onto him. Not a single readable emotion on that knockout face.

Suu’s heart hammered in her chest as he leaned into her, but she refused to back down. Staring back like a bewildered cat, she watched as he stopped a few inches away from her face, his long locks draping around her like a thick veil. Pursing her lips, she braced herself for a scolding; a tirade over poking her nose into his personal business. But instead, the human-and-brick-wall love-child in front of her twisted his lips into the sneakiest smile she’d ever seen thus far.

‘…but he rarely smiles,’ the little girl’s words from earlier filled her ears, and she suddenly noticed that her face felt ablaze despite the cool breeze.

She didn’t want to think about the fact that he’d smiled at her from the very beginning; for the most part. Smiles and smirks. Maybe he just thinks I have a funny face, she dismissed. In which case, go f—k yourself, Fox-face.

Fox-face tilted his head a little to the side as if to get a better look at her, and his long hair tickled parts of her face. Suu was too stunned to speak, her alarmed eyes unable to avoid his rousing gaze.

“You probably should’ve stayed away from me, yeah…” his voice dropped to a low rasp. “…but its too late for you now.”

____

And precisely because it was all too late for her now, he insisted that he walk her home. Suu tried her best to get him to back off, but he’d simply refused and shook his head.

“If, Gods-forbid, you lose your way, or you get blown into the river by a strong wind gust,” he’d shrugged, “everyone will say I did it. And then my Mom and everyone else would kill me.”

Presently, she walked beside him along the riverside-path, too tired and embarrassed to say anything to him. Bright stone-lanterns and warm city-lights cast several shades of yellow and orange light onto them. She realized that she’d never been to this part of the city, at least not when it was dark out. While it wasn’t too far from the bookstore, it was an unfamiliar part of town. Face still burning from embarrassment, she stuffed her hands in her skirt-pockets and looked up at the fading sky.

She itched to say something to him, ask him questions perhaps, but she didn’t want to push her luck. It was like she knew something and yet nothing at all about the fox-faced man strolling beside her; his gaze lingering on the flowing river. Watching the bright city-lights dance all over him, another deep wave of sadness washed over her just like before.

“He looks so sad, you know?” The little girl’s words echoed in her mind once again.

What makes you so sad, Fox-face?

Fists clenched, she tipped her head up to address him. “Um,” she blurted out before she could choose better words, “I’m sorry, but I heard you went to jail when you were a kid.”

He stopped in his tracks, and she paused a few steps ahead of him. Swallowing hard, she desperately searched his face, wondering if her question was worth hurting him over. But even if she apologized now, the words were already out there, and the damage had been done.

Regret coursed through her body in a searing flash as Fox-face looked at the ground.

Ever so slowly, he nodded.

------