“I grew up here, in this house… It was pretty much all I knew for thirteen years. Tutors. Mercedes. Private schools. Trips abroad. Of course, I was a kid then, so I didn’t really know how good I had it.”
I can’t even begin to picture the life he’s describing — the world I’m staining just by lying here. What’s even harder to imagine is how Dai lost it. Why doesn’t he live here anymore? What happened to his tutors and expensive cars?
I ask him.
“I’ve told you before about my brother.” Dai swallows. “The one you remind me of. His name was Hiro.”
Was. This word feels like another strange drug pumped into my body. It makes me want to puke. I knew this story wasn’t a happy one. I just didn’t know it would be so close to mine.
“I lost him.” Dai’s head dips down between his knees. Hands muss up his hair. The way he isn’t looking at me makes me think he’s crying.
“We were two years apart. I was older, but Hiro had a better head on his shoulders. He was a good kid: straight As, star athlete, and all that. He could’ve been anything he wanted. I was trouble. Stealing cars for joyrides, cheating on tests, sneaking some of my father’s liquor… if anything was against the rules, I probably did it. When we were little, Hiro would always follow me around and tell me not to do things. Like those little shoulder-angels in the cartoons. Sometimes I even listened to him.”
He talks and I see Mei Yee. It’s not the good times: the nights we huddled under the ginkgo tree and watched fog break over the mountains, or when our mother steeped used tea leaves and served us weak amber water in chipped cups. No. What I see is the last time. The night the men came. The terror on her face. The ripping, shredding awfulness in my chest. The same awfulness I hear in Dai’s voice.
“When I turned fourteen, Mother and Father sent me off to boarding school on the other side of Seng Ngoi. Mostly the kids there are rich and bored… But there were a few in my year who were trouble. All the boys broke the rules. It was kind of what you did. We smuggled in cigarettes and liquor. Dirty magazines.”
He pauses again. “I was young. Stupid. I started hanging around boys who were getting involved in things way over their heads. Blackmailing other students for money. Dealing drugs. It was fun. A rush. A sense of power. Other boys looked up to me. Wanted to work for me.
“It was good my first two years. No one got caught. We’d built our own little kingdom inside the school. Nothing could stop us. But then Hiro came to school. It didn’t take him very long to figure out what I was doing. As soon as he found out, he tried to talk me out of it, like he always did. But I wouldn’t listen.
“Anyway, we got into a big fight about it, just before one of my night runs to pick up the next month’s supply of drugs. Hiro tried to stop me from going — he grabbed my hoodie and told me I was a good person. I tore away, left him at school, thought that was the last of it.
“We used Longwai as a supplier. His men would meet us out in Seng Ngoi and make the exchange. It was me and the mayor’s son who had to go pick up that night. The kid — his name was Pat Ying — was really jumpy. He’d already taken a few hits before we snuck out. I liked to go on the runs clean. Have my head in order.
“Hiro followed us that night. I didn’t know until…” Dai pauses. His eyes glitter with almost-tears. Behind them I see the tension of that long-lost night. How dark the streets were. The anger and fear fighting a cage match in his chest. How much he loved his brother. The heavy, heavy guilt that now bends his back. Breaks his voice.
“Things went… bad. There was a squabble over how much. Pat Ying got cocky and started arguing with Longwai’s man. Pat Ying pulled out a knife, and I tried to stop him. He was too high to realize it was me, sliced my arm open.” Dai winces at the memory, and I remember the scar that snakes up his arm.
“Longwai’s man had a gun. The knife was enough to get him to pull it out and start shooting. Everything happened so fast. And my arm hurt. And suddenly Hiro was there, yelling. There was so much sound and then Hiro was on the ground. Pat Ying, too. And I couldn’t see any blood. But there was the gun — right there, by my feet. Longwai’s man dropped it somehow. I’d never shot a gun before, but something about seeing my brother on the ground not moving made me pick it up. Longwai’s man jumped at me, and I didn’t even think about it. I just pulled the trigger.”
Dai closes his eyes. I can’t tell if he’s remembering or fighting. Maybe both.
“And when it was done, there was just me holding the gun. Everything was on the ground. The drugs. The cash. Hiro and Pat Ying. The man I killed.
“Hiro—" His brother’s name hangs in the air for a moment, heavy with memory and sadness. “He was only fourteen. He could’ve been anything he wanted… He had his whole fucking life ahead of him! He believed in me, thought I would make the right choice. He died in my arms instead.
“I didn’t know what to do. Pat Ying was dead, too. Both he and Hiro were shot with the gun I was holding. Longwai’s man, too. I came back here, to the house. Told my father what had happened.
“I was sixteen. Old enough to be tried as an adult. Old enough to go to jail. My father knew all of this. Knew they would come for me. He didn’t even think twice about taking me to Hak Nam. I’d never even seen him drive a car before…
But he shoved me in the back and took me to the Walled City. He told me to wait there until he could straighten things out, since the police couldn’t arrest me there. I waited and waited. At first he came back every week to the Old South Gate with money and news. But the weeks dragged on and he couldn’t clear my name. My prints were on the gun and three people were dead by its bullets.
“I’ve been a fugitive for two years now. If I step out of Hak Nam, the police can arrest me, take me to trial for murder and drug dealing. Even with my father’s influence, I don’t think it’ll end well.”
His story’s a lot to take in. It makes my head spin. I’m dizzy without even moving. “So… you killed one of Longwai’s men and now you’re working for him? Aren’t you afraid he’s going to find out? And if your dad’s giving you money, then why are you working at all? Why take the risk?”
“We never used names. I know Longwai could still trace it back to me, if he looked into it closely enough. I’m just hoping he won’t.” Dai swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. There’s more to this story.
“Jin—" Dai catches himself. “Is that your real name?”
“Jin Ling.”
“Do you know why Hak Nam is the way it is? Why it’s exempt from the law?”
It’s hard to shake my head in this immense fluff of pillow. I try my best.
“It used to be a fort. That’s why there are cannons by the Old South Gate. About a hundred years ago foreigners came and bought up the city; but because Hak Nam was a fort, it wasn’t a part of their contract. Governments got switched around and new laws were made, but Hak Nam was just forgotten. None of the politicians or police paid attention to it, so it grew and grew into what it is now.”
His talk about governments and politicians sounds like a foreign language. Hard to understand. I follow it as best as I can. Nod anyway.
“The foreigners’ contract is scheduled to end at New Year’s. A new city council has formed to guide the transition. They’ve decided to take over Hak Nam and demolish it. They just passed an ordinance that allows them to go into the Walled City and clean it out. Raze it to the ground. As soon as the New Year arrives, they’re sending in the Security Branch to take it back.”