Chapter 65: 65 Birthday Girl, Part Two

Angharad and Tsuyoshi sat on the floor, but first Angharad grabbed Freya by the sleeve and tugged her down to sit with them.

"Yes, we can rescue this party!" Freya declared. She still looked a little lost, at first, at the way Jin had walked out the door, but equally determined. When Freya put on a smile, Angharad couldn't help smiling back and believing her.

"Okay," Angharad said. She patted the floor, in the least subtle way possible, and Josephine jumped a little and made that adorable 'who, me?' face, before following them onto the floor. And then Eleanor and Mac realised everyone else was doing it, and did it, too.

Tsuyoshi slung an arm over Angharad's shoulders again.

"Well, now that the straight people are gone..." he said.

"Straight people and your boyfriend," she said.

"Okay, I can't be sure I'm not straight people just because I made out with you," Mac said. "I mean, it was great. I would do it again. I'm just not sure that means anything."

Maybe Mac's really sincere expression was kind of funny, in a sweet way, but the flattening expressions Angharad could see on certain other people's faces out of the corner of her eye were kind of alarming.

"Okay, well, lets redirect from that before everyone becomes, like, desperately uncomfortable again," Angharad said.

Freya sighed. "I'm sorry about Jin. He gets like this sometimes. I think he's frustrated that he hasn't made the progress he wanted when it comes to the barrier."

Angharad nodded. It made sense. She put a friendly hand on Freya's knee, to show her she was happy Freya had stayed anyway instead of following Jin out, but without being obnoxious and gloating about it.

Tsuyoshi heaved a dramatic sigh, as well. "Then I have to apologise for Tabitha," he said, voice rough. "It's probably the constant agonising pain and the prospect of inescapable death turning her into such a bitch."

"Okay, that just brings the mood down again," Angharad said.

"I know, what about charades!" Freya suggested.

At that point, Angharad was willing to consider anything.

*

Yong Jie searched the grounds and found Neo hanging around near the laundry room again, leaning over a young kid, speaking in a slurring voice, saying something horrible.

The kid kept leaning away and stumbling back, saying, "You've been told to leave me alone."

Yong Jie clenched a fist. Were there no responsible adults on this side of the camp? No rosters and no respect for community and other human beings?

"Leave that boy alone," Yong Jie said.

Neo turned around. He looked ill, one hand swollen. It was disgusting to look at.

"My favourite future victim," Neo said. "What will you give me to leave him alone?"

"Fight me instead of a child, you coward," Yong Jie said.

Neo laughed, so Yong Jie charged him first, slammed him straight into the table. Neo made an oof sound and the table squeaked, its wheels screeching against the floor as they struggled. Neo hit back but Yong Jie was even faster in return. Then he swerved back and attacked Neo's right knee. A decisive hit. Neo crumpled sideways long enough for Yong Jie to get in one last punch to the face.

"You absolute fucker," Neo moaned.

Yong Jie looked around. The boy was already gone. He wasn't sure what he'd been in the laundry room for.

*

"That could have been worse," Tsuyoshi said, as he pulled Angharad through the door.

She laughed, just a little. "By your standards that's, like, super optimistic."

He nearly bumped straight into Ibrahim and Milo, who were a few feet from the building, Milo with his arms crossed and looking away, and Ibrahim with his hands folded into each other. They must have been waiting for them.

"Ah, hello, Tsuyoshi," Ibrahim said in his gentle voice. "We've come to escort you back to the hospital. We have things to talk to you about."

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"Oh, look," Angharad said, and poked Tsuyoshi's shoulder, "boys! And they're worried about your safety. Isn't that so cute?"

He gave her a sardonic look. "You're sober. Why are you like this?"

Because it had started off as a terrible birthday, and charades wasn't a good game, but Freya had tried her best to make things better, anyway. And Josephine's girlfriend had looked awkward but she hadn't looked angry or suspicious at Angharad, which was mega progress! It wasn't as good as talking to her family, or freedom, but it wasn't nothing. She'd take what she could get.

But she darted up to kiss his cheek before he could get away and said, "Because I get to be escorted home by cute girls."

He rolled his eyes as she dashed away to catch up with Freya, but Angharad could tell it was a fond eye roll and wasn't worried.

Angharad walked with Freya part of the way to her cabin but not all the way.

"I don't want you have to walk all the way back on your own," Freya said. "You're already shivering."

"You're sure? What if a scary thing goes after you instead?" Angharad asked. As soon as Freya mentioned the shivering, it was like Angharad became unable to stop it. Annoying.

Freya winked. "You can't tell from this outfit, but I'm carrying a loaded weapon."

Angharad hugged Freya near her door, then waved and made her way back.

In the small stretch of the way back to her own building from Freya's cabin, Angharad had to walk alone. In the relative quiet of the night, as she passed the laundry room, she heard the faint sound of someone crying. She tiptoed closer to the sound.

Neo sat on the gravel, face in his hands, crying alone.

She wasn't sure what to do. Should she step back and leave him to it?

He raised his face before she could decide. Neo's face was flowering with bruises and his hands were spattered with drying blood.

"What are you looking at?" he asked. "Come to stare at the freak?"

"No, but... You shouldn't be alone out here at night."

But she stepped away from him. She wasn't going to be the one to make him go to his room.

And when she moved around the laundry room and back to the path to her dorm building, the other girls were still waiting for her.

*

Tsuyoshi shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at a rock. The hospital doors were in sight and he was anxious to be away from Ibrahim again.

"Just hurry up and show me what you want to show me," Tsuyoshi said.

Ibrahim turned around. "Ah, Milo, do you still have it in your pocket?"

Milo put a hand into one of the over-large pockets in his jacket and pulled out an object, wrapped neatly in a faded check-pattern tea towel. He unfolded the towel to reveal a dusty book, a first edition copy of The Remains of the Day.

Tsuyoshi became aware of the sounds of everyone's breaths as they stood there huddled around such a small thing.

"I hope you don't mind that I checked inside to see if it belonged to anyone here," Ibrahim said. "It seems to belong to someone who shares a name with you. Would you like to have it?"

Tsuyoshi startled into motion, his hands grabbing for the book and the towel with it. Uncle Tim had pressed that precious copy of his favourite book into Tsuyoshi's hands in the airport car park before Tsuyoshi left for that ill-fated trip, as if Tsuyoshi would read Tim's favourite book and somehow learn to love reading and all the other things Tim liked. Of course he wanted it. He wanted to hold every part of home that he could.

"Would you like us to clean it off first?" Ibrahim asked.

Tsuyoshi re-wrapped the book and held it to his chest. "No, I... This is fine."

He shoved past them before they could ask anything more of him.

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