Yan's form shimmered before blinking onto the third floor. Asher followed by swinging himself down using the rails.
When he finally landed on his feet, Yan was waiting for him. Mei's door was wide open, allowing the aroma of food to diffuse into the air.
Yan licked her dry lips as she stepped inside with him.
In the less than thirty minutes that they were on the roof, Mei had covered the kitchen counter with plates.
Mei smiled at them warmly. She almost looked sane.
She pointed to the plates on the counter, then to a long folding table leaned against the wall.
"I feel like eating outside today."
Asher wrinkled his nose slightly at the thought of all the smoke in the outside air, but Yan seemed to understand Mei's choice.
"After cremation, eating outside is a form of ritual ingestion. This process is usually done following the cremation of the body itself. But you feel like this will suffice?"
Mei nodded her head, her face pulled into a static smile. They had to comply, her dead eyes told them. He took a few dishes to carry up as Yan grabbed the table. Mei stood behind, too weak to balance dishes effectively or carry the table up.
Within minutes, everything was set up. The three of them sat in a row, facing the sunset. No one spoke as they ate. Asher wasn't sure if it was due to the smoke or because of Mei's apparent depression, but the previously delicious smelling food was tasteless. Simply devoid of anything.
Mei ate the most out of all of them, desperate to fill her body with Bellecote. She smiled wider as she ate, with tears dripping out of her eyes. She had eaten the ash of so many acquaintances and strangers she didn't care about over hundreds of funerals, but the City couldn't even afford the same for her best friend?
Life was cruel.
They finished in silence. By the time they had brought the table and plates back down, it was already nighttime.
But for some reason, Yan was still there, standing beside him.
"Miss Li, can I talk outside with Asher for three minutes?"
Mei looked at her, then at Asher.
"Don't die... don't die... please? Yan, don't let him die..." She babbled, her face twisting into a grin that could best be described as a terrified whimper.
Asher looked back as Yan pulled him out, reassuring Mei the best he could with a nod. The way she was now... could her mind ever heal from this?
Yan swept him off his feet, flickering onto the roof once again.
He stuttered as the girl, nearly half a head shorter than him, held him in her arms.
"S-So, what did you want to say?"
Yan opened her eyes. Crystal sapphires stared into Asher's stormy gray pupils.
She gulped audibly, preparing herself. She set him on the ground.
And she pulled him close until their faces nearly touched.
For her final confession.
"I killed Bellecote."
She smiled.
...
"What?!" Startled, he pushed away from her.
The girl tilted her head.
"I was the one who gave that Prescript. The one that she died trying to complete."
"So you were the Messenger that... I mean, why? What did she do to you? Did you see how Mei's like now that Bell's dead?"
Asher tried to stare at her directly, but Yan's unblinking gaze was too much for him to look at.
He turned his head away, unable to keep eye contact.
This was why Messengers were so feared in the Backstreets. Their unsettling calmness, their monotone punctuality.
"She was merely the target I was told to give it to. The Prescripts are absolute. To fail the Prescript is to renounce the protection of the Index. Bellecote knew this." She stepped back, clasping her hands nervously.
Asher's voice lowered to a disbelieving whisper.
"But what about Mei?? You saw what she was like just now." Thinking back to Mei's twisted face when she pleaded with him to stay safe... Yan caused that?
"My task is to hand the Prescripts." Yan trembled, her voice cracking with poorly hidden emotion.
He pointed at Yan warily.
"Then, if the Prescripts told you to hurt Mei, even kill her, you would do it?"
Yan was a Messenger, he was a Fixer. Now he realized the difference between them.
His heart quickened as Yan seemed to crumple, folding into a shivering ball.
Finally, she nodded.
"I have to. I would have to. I can't-"
They stood opposite of each other now.
Asher thought of Mei, whose mind was broken by Bellecote's death. He thought of the woman's voice as she babbled incomprehensibly, lost in her own world of misery.
Anger and disappointment coursed through him.
Most of all, he was disappointed in himself for allowing this to happen.
"So you did all this... Don't you feel anything?" The streetlights flickered as something awakened inside him. When he raised his head once again, Yan froze.
Glassy eyes bore through her body. They seemed to ask her countless versions of the same question.
Where is your guilt?
Haven't you seen what you have caused?
Yan tried to respond the way she was trained.
"It is all the Prescript's will-"
"Bullshit." Asher's mouth spat with venom. A single word of concentrated poison.
The word cut through Yan like a knife. She could have brushed off a speech of hate easily, yet somehow this single word, from the boy she had feelings for...
A strangled sob wrenched from her throat.
"Then why don't you kill me?" Yan murmured softly. She spread her arms out, letting go the last shard of emotion she had left.
Asher transformed. Yan smiled, her expressionless facade broken.
But before he could move, he was seized by a fit of laughter.
"Ha Ha! Do it yourself if you want! ...I don't care anymore."
His voice was soft and exhausted. His anger fled him at the last moment. At least Mei wasn't dead, his rationale told him.
Their relationship hadn't reached the point of bloodshed. And if they truly fought, who knew how many times the boy would die before his strength caught up.
The gravel under Asher's feet crunched as he made his way to the edge of the roof.
"Dammit, Yan. Can't you see what you've done to her? Can't you see what those Prescripts do to people?"
He sighed.
"Can't you leave the Index?" His voice trailed away.
Yan walked up to him despite herself.
"Quit the Index? Impossible. The Prescripts won't allow that."
Asher scoffed.
"So that cursed voice in your head is more important than anything? Than the lives of the people around you?"
Yan's lips trembled. It was true. She couldn't imagine life without the Prescripts, no matter how miserable she was. She could never escape it. And she never wanted to.
Even if it was the one that caused her suffering, she never would have dreamt of leaving it.
"Asher... I'm sorry-"
Asher cut her off with a slash of his hand.
"Don't be. Do whatever you want. But please... don't come near me for a while. And especially Mei. Stay away from her."
His tone contained a brisk finality, especially regarding his last words.
Yan allowed herself to nod with some difficulty.
Then she was gone.
Asher looked at the murky sky above him. He contemplated his life, the few days he could remember.
Yan was a Messenger, while he was a Fixer. This was the difference between the two.
Asher put on a detached performance in front of her, but that wasn't how he truly felt.
He felt lost.
Not angry, not disappointed. Just lost.
...
Asher stepped inside.
In the bedroom, Mei was trying her hardest to sleep. She kept twisting and turning, crying out pitifully as she called for her friend.
"Bell... Bell!"
Asher slipped under the covers with her, reaching his arms out to calm her down.
She elbowed his stomach in response. Taking the hint, Asher allowed her to sob on her own.
Because he had his own thinking to do. He turned to the other side of the bed as Mei wailed.
'Everything's in shambles... System, what do I do?' Asher looked to his System, his guardian 'angel'. It was there from the beginning of his memories. All the missions it gave him helped him come this far.
But what was the point?
Mei was inconsolably broken, whimpering next to him. He couldn't fix his relationship with Yan, and now he didn't want to. Two sharp knives twisted through his heart.
[Forget about those matters. Strength and truth are what you seek, correct? You have Fixers, you have connections now.]
'But what about Mei? There's no way I can help her. Her best friend just died!'
[You have the answer.]
'I... do? Tell me!'
[You are currently unstable, unable to think properly. Sleep.]
It didn't continue.
Asher cried for the System over and over again, but it never responded. And once Mei finally lost consciousness, he too drifted into a nightmarish slumber.
...
An hour before dawn.
Mei sat up.
Her pupils were fractals of muddled red light.
Pulsing at the rate of her heartbeat.
The Rebirth of a Star.
The Blood Red Night.
It smiled.