Baku Chapter 2: Claire

Now

“I should cut his dick off and bleach it,” Samantha said, crying into her pillow.

Claire was sitting on the pink, plush armchair in the college dorm. It didn’t fit her body well. She hardly was heavy, but the bag seemed to have her sink into it all the same. She blew upward from her slightly fuller than average lips towards her bright red hair. Her sinking in unexpectedly had gotten hair in her eyes. She tried again and finally got the hair out of her green eyes. After finally settling down, she looked around the room. 

The room was filled with sparkles and pink - an ostentatiously large amount of pink. So much so that it hurt Claire’s eyes. Samantha had buried her face into a Hello Kitty doll, and so Claire thought it looked from the angle that the doll was speaking. She couldn’t tell which was more unnerving, thinking it was Hello Kitty that said it - or her best friend.

Either way, she resolved in that moment that she was happy she was not James. 

“He was stupid and he didn’t deserve you anyways,” Claire said, going through the motions. The script was almost memorized by this point.

“Three years, Claire. Three. I’m practically a spinster now.”

Claire rolled her eyes, letting the unintentional backhand at her own age go by the wayside. She was four years her senior. 

“He was a stupid fiancé. I would say there are plenty of men like him out there, but I hope I am wrong. Surely you’ll find better.”

“Let’s go get fucked up,” Samantha said, removing herself from the pillow. Her bright blue eyes were watery, and her bottle blonde hair disheveled.

Claire tensed. Claire remembered sirens, stomach pumps, and stolen chickens. 

“I don’t think I have finished paying off the bail bond from last time yet, Sam. Anything else you want to do?” 

Samantha looked right at Claire, glaring.

“You’re my best friend, Claire. Good friends are the ones that bail you out - best friends are the ones in the cell next to you.”

“I’m afraid my Marriott credit card doesn’t count those nights.” 

“Then what do you propose?” Samantha paused. Then cried again, her face contorting as the last part of the sentence left her mouth.

“Let’s go do something that proves you are living better than him. Something fun, but also that proves to him you’ve got your life together. Something Instagram worthy.”

Samantha looked at her and then at the picture of her ex-fiancé still hanging on a dream board. She threw the tear-stained Hello Kitty pillow at it. 

“Fuck you and the coochie that spat you out,” she shouted at the nightmare board. “Let’s do it. And I know just the place.” 

“…which is?” Claire said, hesitant and worried.

“This restaurant he got us a reservation for. It took him six months to get it. Let’s go use it, and that way he and that bitch of his can’t.”

“Samantha, you can’t call her a bitch.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Bitches’ sides. You’re being offensive to the other bitches.”

Samantha chuckled and wiped her tears away with her wrist. 

“Let’s go.”

“Samantha,” Claire said. “I will say what I should have told you when you started to date him. Stop and put your pants on.”

Samantha looked down and noticed she was still wearing only her Hello Kitty panties. 

“You know, that’s probably the best move,” she yielded. 

****

The Baku restaurant was tall. It certainly wasn’t a skyscraper; it didn’t cut into the New York City skyline, but at five stories tall, like it was more of a hotel than it was a restaurant. Grand statues were in the courtyard garden in front of the Baku. All of them carved from black marble laced with silver interwoven into the designs. Some were of people lost in thought, some of children playing in the courtyard, others playing chess - so detailed one could think it was a 3d photograph - a moment captured in time that could not help but be real. Claire looked at the statues - she could swear that was actual silver, rather than the fake commercial shiny stuff. 

As they crossed the threshold of the Baku, they noticed the doorjamb was of blackened wood, polished and finished with black ash, with the same speckled dust of silver, but more refined and noticeable than that of the statues. It was sealed, but there was a fresh dust as well, some not lacquered in. 

Claire brushed her fingers across the doorjamb.

“Charcoal,” she said aloud. 

“That is true,” a voice said behind her. 

She turned and noticed a man in a burnt orange suit. His hair was slicked back, held in spikes with what had to be some sort of gel - even though she could not see any of it. Though it was night time he wore glasses with rounded, blue frames that sported equally blue lenses. The man’s face looked soft but handsome, as though it did not belong on statue, but more in a painting. 

“What brings you to our restaurant,” the man said as he took out a stick of charcoal and absent-mindedly marked where Claire had brushed her hand. 

“Food,” Samantha said. “Although if you’re on the menu, I guess I could go for that too.”

The man chuckled.

“Ma’am, I am afraid I am too old for you. But we can see what we can do about getting you a handsome server tonight. What’s the occasion?”

“My fiancé is a cheating bastard, and I want some fine dining served by handsome men.”

“And this was worth celebrating?”

“Well, ex-fiancé. I’m celebrating I caught cheating before I caught herpes.”

“Ah, always worth celebrating. Let’s get you a good table, then. Nothing celebrates not getting anything communicable like a nice wine and steak.”

“Switch that wine for vodka and you’ve got a deal,” Samantha beamed. “What’s your name?”

“Happy coincidence, m’lady. I’m the co-manager, Seojin, Bringer of Fine Steaks and Vodkas.”

The two of them continued their conversation as the man led them to their table. 

Claire was horrified… but at least this one was employed.

****

The man in the blue suit stared as the ice in his glass was getting smaller. The beads of condensation on the outside of the glass moved slowly to greet one another. His hair was the color of a dirty brown, slightly disheveled, with his bold red tie loose. Coyote picked up the glass and drank. 

The original drink had been poured out, into one of the bamboo trees’ pots near his table. Coyote had dabbed a few touches of the original bourbon onto his neck, to make sure the smell of alcohol lingered on him. 

The drink itself had been filled with apple juice from a flask he carried in his jacket. 

The music in the restaurant’s fourth level was calming. Not as loud as the club music on the second, and the fourth level’s booths were curved, with a green finished leather and finished bamboo for the wood. 

Everything about the room spoke higher end clientele. Which is why Coyote looked out of place. His cheaper suit and mid-level haircut were not matching the other guests that some of the other booths occupied. All higher end, some lower moral. Judges and mob bosses, all of whom Coyote recognized on sight, even though they had never met. 

It wasn’t their job to know him; just his job to know them. 

Everything about the situation, from the lack of a waitress coming around to the long wait time for the manager, everything seemed designed to test his patience.

But the American had long proven he had enough patience. 

Finally, after another hour, the manager appeared. This one in a black suit. The man was of Japanese descent, but had a Chinese name.

“Yue Fei,” Coyote acknowledged, standing up. “It is nice to finally meet you.”

Yue Fei did not return the smile. 

“I am afraid I don’t know you,” he said, “and I know everyone.”

“I’m new in town.”

“That doesn’t matter. I should know everything about you.”

“Ah, you mean because of your gifts,” Coyote said looking around and whispering in Chinese.

The Mandarin surprised Yue Fei. It was by no means perfect, but certainly understandable. It was someone who had been studying - for quite a while.

“You can call me Julian,” the Coyote said, switching back to English and extending a business card, “the Fifth King."

Yue Fei read it. Fifth Kingdom, LLC. 

“There are Four Kings,” Seojin said walking up beside Yue Fei. 

Coyote shrugged. “Let’s call it four and a half, for now.”

“Is this a business?”

“That’s certainly why I am here,” Coyote said, “on business. I think we can help each other.”

Yue Fei stared at him. 

“I still want to know why I can’t read you.” 

“My dreams? My insecurities? My faults?” Coyote smiled. “You let me give my spiel, and then I'll answer that. Is that fair?”

Yue Fei looked at Seojin.

“I’d take that deal,” Seojin said. “But I am also bored, and I’m always up for something interesting.” 

“Deal,” Yue Fei said.

Coyote smiled. “I believe in the American dream.” 

He paused for a moment, taking a thoughtful drink from his apple juice. 

“There are many things I want, Yue Fei. Riches, gold - actually more so silver, and world peace.” He said the last part dramatically. “Actually, just American peace is fine with me. But to do that, I need resources. I think having a Baku on my side - even a half blooded one, with such prominence and connections as yourself, would benefit my kingdom considerably.”

“Your LLC.”

“Let’s call it a half a kingdom, for now.”

“I still don’t see how this benefits me.”

Coyote switched back to Mandarin. 

“I can stop the Hunger.”

Yue Fei’s eyes narrowed. A wave of emotion filled the room, the entire floor of the restaurant felt uneasy, off balance emotionally by the leaking anger from the half-Baku.

“How do you know about the Hunger?”

“Every Baku experiences the Hunger, Yue Fei. But there are very few like you that try to fight it. That’s why I think we can work together. You want to be more than just a Baku - more than just hungry, am I right?”

“You can go now, Mr. Julian - Coyote.”

“Consider it?” Coyote asked. It was more of a statement than a question. “But I told you I would tell you my secret - and I keep my word.”

“Get out.”

“Well, hold on, Yue. Even if you don’t, I kind of do,” Seojin said. 

Coyote smiled. 

“Sorry, the contract was with him. But you would know about contracts, wouldn’t you, Mr. Seojin?”

Seojin frowned. “I think I agree with Yue Fei now. You can leave.”

“This seems to have gone in a direction that I would have preferred it hadn’t. I want you to know, Yue Fei, my knowing your secret does not make me the bad guy. Quite the opposite, in fact. But I seem to have struck a nerve. Once the nerve pain subsides - and  if you do ever want help, Yue Fei - let me know. Because, you see, Yue Fei,” he looked at Seojin, “some friendships last longer than just a few years. I tell you what, when you’re ready, I will only charge you an arm and a leg.”

With that, Coyote stood up and walked out.

****

“You shouldn’t let him get to you like that,” Seojin said, reaching over the bar counter for a bottle of rather expensive whiskey. “You know I’m your friend.”

The two of them had moved their conversation to the bar, still on the fourth floor. Seojin poured about three fingers’ worth in each of the glasses. 

“I’ve got what, five years left of that?” Yue Fei snapped back, he absently gestured his hand to decline whiskey from Seojin. “You planning on extending your contract?”

“You’re my friend now,” Seojin said. “A friend now is better than no friend now. And besides, I’m the best friend you’ve ever had.”

“That’s a confidence booster right there, Seojin."

Yue Fei looked away. The ten year old version of himself was stupid, and a bad negotiator. 

He looked back at Seojin, who was busy drawing calligraphy on his napkin. “Are you trying to blow up the restaurant? That’s a super high powered bujeok you’re writing.”

“It’s not written in charcoal or cinnabar. When you see red ink, then you should worry. This is black ink,” Seojin said, not looking away from his calligraphy. “The most this would do is blow up this floor.” He had started another page.

“Comforting. Don’t you already know how to do this?”

“Look, guy, a badass Dokkaebi stays badass because he practices. You think this genius just happened?” He looked Yue Fei dead in the eyes. Then his expression softened with a shrug. “…Well, yes it did. But I’m still going to practice.”

“Whatever, just don’t blow up my restaurant. Look, do you have this floor? I’m hungry, so I would rather go and get something to eat.”

“You say that so nonchalantly. They’re people, Yue.”

“They’re meals.”

“If you really thought they were meals, you wouldn’t stick to just their nightmares and their fears,” Seojin said. He showed Yue Fei a piece of paper. It was different than the others had been. Instead of artistic twirls and rigid lines, it looked more like modern day Korean.

“What does this one say?” Yue Fei said, looking at it.

“Sutangnagwi.”

“What does that mean?”

Seojin stuck it to Yue Fei’s chest.

“Jackass.”

“You’re lucky I’m not seeing red,” Yue Fei said flatly.

****

“Are you serious?” Samantha said to the waitress. “His card is on file?”

They were sitting in a booth on the first floor, with this floor of the restaurant resembling fine dining - a hybrid of French cuisine, with strong oakwood chairs and tables themselves made of black and white granite slabs. Every piece of the cutlery was pure silver.

“Yes?” the waitress said to her cautiously. The petite blonde woman was holding her pen and checking again the reservation for the third time. She was afraid to answer this woman - afraid what would happen if she said yes, but at the same time, definitely wanting to see what unfolded. 

Samantha was beaming so much that Claire could almost see it coming off her. Although, it didn’t look like light to Claire though - but fire, and Claire certainly didn’t want to get burned. 

“Maybe we should just pretend it wasn’t on file,” she suggested. 

“He cheated on me,” Samantha said. “And, if I am correct, the only reason he set you up with Matthew was to get him laid. He Who Can Go Fuck Himself knew perfectly well that Matthew only wanted to get all up in that.”

“Waitress, I would like the caviar and Kobe steak - 32 oz., please.”

“Was Matthew hot?” the waitress asked, writing down the order.

“No,” Samantha answered for Claire. “His hairline went all the way to his back, he kept staring at my friend’s chest, and called her baby ten minutes into the double date.”

“Might I suggest the truffles as well?”

“I like the way you think,” Samantha said.

The waitress wrote down the last part with more aggression than was necessary, the date bringing similar back memories of her own, and went off towards the kitchen. 

“Samantha, you might want to tone it down just a little bit,” Claire said. “I’m all for sticking it to Ja—” Samantha scowled at her. “…To Fuck Himself right where it hurts too. But you should relax. This night is supposed to be about forgetting that guy and about celebrating you.”

Samantha relaxed her shoulders. 

“You are right again, Claire,” Samantha relented. “I guess it’s just hard to let go of someone who was supposed to be half of you life.” 

Claire saw that the conversation was about to go the other direction very quickly. 

“You’ve got your own company now, right? Pet salons can make some serious money. You enjoy your job. Certainly more than some of us.”

“I do very much enjoy staring into the eyes of a Japanese Chin while giving them a belly rub and some soap,” Samantha smiled, looking off.

Claire pretended to miss the latter part of that.

“So focus on work,” she said, looking at the menu again, “and this eight hundred dollar check that’s about to hit his bank account.”

“That might make me even happier.”

****

This was wrong. Yue Fei kept that idea in the back of his head. It was there, digging at him, questioning his morals - his humanity - but even so, he went to the first floor. 

Someone grieving - that was all he needed. Someone who wouldn’t miss a little grief or bad memories. 

When he reached the first floor, he stopped. 

Pockets of it came from different tables - the blur. Like looking right at the edge of a hand, where the end of the hand touches the air, the faint blur of the edge. It was there, emanating off of the people who came here. Some for prestige, some for clicks, some because they got a little too much on their tax returns - some because they never paid taxes. 

And some came for hunger.

Yue Fei looked for it - the biggest blur. Which table…? His eyes glanced across the room. Some people getting engaged; the woman said yes - but still a surprisingly large expansion in the blur. Some people having a break up speech - the man’s blur sadly disappearing. 

Then he spotted it, like a beacon - radiating like the heat in the desert.

“Hello,” Yue Fei said, looking at the woman. “I’m the manager.”

“Samantha,” the woman said.

****

Claire stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. She had left for a reprieve from melodrama, and was patting her face down with a wet cloth. She paused and looked. There was a gray hair at her temple. 

“Well, shit,” she said. That was the sixth one, now. Coincidentally, that was the number of times she had sat through one of Samantha’s break up parties. 

She steeled her mind, again. She tried to think back to how many times they had been out for one of Claire’s breakups. She couldn’t think of one. 

Claire thought back to Matthew. That had been the last date she’d had - and it didn’t go well. She certainly hadn’t gotten laid. She doubt the man would have been able to find his own dick under the rolls, much less know how to use it.

Claire’s mind went to how happy Samantha had been - that was the only reason she had subjected herself to Matthew’s advances - albeit politely and with heavy boundaries. The emphasis lied on the heavy part. 

But when was the last time she let herself go have fun? When was the last time she pulled a Samantha? She was always worried about others, but she couldn’t remember the last time she had felt a little happiness.

“Happiness,” she thought aloud. “Is fleeting. Joy is permanent. Happiness is fleeting. Joy is permanent.”

She recomposed herself and left the bathroom.

****

There

Samantha’s void was a wild barrage of colors. Stars almost more there than blackness. And most of them, most of the stars were red, yellow, and blue. There were some purple, but they were far and between the blue ones. 

Right now, only three. It’s more of a service than it is a crime. Yue Fei looked around at all the blue. 

It wasn’t as though they were scarce. 

He plucked a few of the blue ones. A first tattoo of a lover’s face. Getting arrested in Canada and Mexico - in the same night. Impressive. And one last one. Someone whose named seemed to actually be redacted in her mind.

So surely nothing she would miss.

He spun them around in his hand like Boading balls. One final chance to turn back. Memories and nightmares were two different things, but even the nightmares were hidden behind all the stars of shame. Hard to get past. Hard to see past.

Eat.

He looked down at the stars in his hand.

She wouldn’t miss them.

****

Here

Samantha looked at Yue Fei. She looked focused on what he was saying, although not speaking. Just nods. Yue Fei was talking about the proper way to fry an egg - and while the answer was that of a true chef, it was not passionate. 

He just needed it as a distraction.

After he finished curbing the Hunger, her eyelids began to flutter. The Hunger wasn’t gone. It was never gone, but it was sated for now. 

Still gnawing. Still there. But contained. 

“Anyways, that is why I applaud you for the Kobe, medium rare. Too many people try to kill a steak by putting it well done. It’s already dead. No need to kill it again,” he said.

“I take my steak like I do many other things in life.”

“How is that?”

“As close to raw as I can,” she said, smiling.

“Well, that’s not surprising,” Claire said, coming back to the table. “I disappear for five minutes and you already are seducing the staff.”

“I’ll have you know, ma’am, I am the owner,” Yue Fei said with a half a smile.

“Fine, seducing the owner.”

Yue Fei smiled slightly. “I hope you don’t think I’m that easy.”

Claire shrugged. “I didn’t say that, but if you infer it…”

Yue Fei reached out his hand.

“I’m Yue Fei,” he said.

Claire shook it. The handshake was slightly firmer than it should have been. “Any chance you can not hit on my friend? We’re kind of still getting over the last one.”

“Claire, I don’t even know what you mean,” Samantha said. “I’m so very over that guy.”

Claire’s eyebrows raised involuntarily. Claire had known Samantha long enough to know when she meant something.

While Claire was looking at Samanatha, Yue Fei looked at Claire. He strained slightly, as though listening for something that wasn’t there.

All he found was silence. His eyes looked for the blur. 

There wasn’t any.

“Is there any chance I can give you guys a round of drinks on the house? To celebrate getting over that guy?”

“And his herpes,” Samantha said.

“Not so over it after all,” Claire said.

“I’m not one to turn down an appletini, are you?” Samantha asked, abashed.

“I didn’t say that,” Claire said with a soft smile.

Yue Fei signaled for the waitress.

****

Coyote sat in the limo, his lips pursed slightly, looking out the window at the Texas sunset. He absently spun the cylinder of his six shot revolver. In the sunset, the glean of the silver frame sent light reflecting onto the black ceiling of the car. 

“They’ll come around,” the man said across from him in the seat.

The man was dressed in brown leather, softened by time. His brown eyes darker than his leather, hair black, long, and pulled back behind his olive, Native American face. 

“I know, Jack," Coyote said. Coyote was used to playing the long game. 

Sometimes the long game just took too long.

Coyote put the gun into his hip holster. He was happy to finally have Bernadette back on his person. 

Jack took out a curved silver blade and held it in his hand. Coyote dismissed it, knowing too well that it wasn’t a threat. Jack would never hurt him. The movement of the leather refreshed the smell of Western Red Cedar that came from Jack. The smell that was always there, lingering like a subtle cologne, engrained quite literally into his very pores.

Instead of using the curved blade as a weapon, Jack took out a sharpening stone and started to refine the edge of the silver. 

Jack knew fully well how valuable a silver blade with a sharp edge was.

“We’re going to meet with the Ironbacks, right?” Jack asked absently. He already knew the answer. 

“We’re going to have to. They are the ones we’re relying on for the parlay.”

“You think it will come to that?” Jack asked, pausing his sharpening.

“I don’t know,” Coyote said, shoulders slightly falling before he corrected himself. “But I do know that I would rather be prepared than not.”

Coyote looked at Jack, who was taking rather too long to sharpen his knife. That was something he did to collect himself. To compose himself. To fight the Drift. 

Coyote looked at the sunset, almost finished.

“This is taking too long,” Coyote said. “We’ll never make it to Galveston with this speed. How about a little of that Dust Walker secret sauce?”

Jack put the silver blade down. 

“Me or the driver?” Jack asked.

“I mean, you could ask the driver. He’d probably think he is faster than you,” Coyote said, then he broke into a smile that actually reached his eyes, “but he don’t know Jack.”

“Galveston?” Jack smiled, laying his other blade on the table and rolled down the window slightly. “Give me five minutes, and we’re there.”

Jack’s face started to turn to ash in front of Coyote.