Chapter 6: Dinner

329 looks up, observing the dining environment—not that he thinks he can actually escape if something goes wrong. The place is quite spacious; the waitstaff stand straight and give identical smiles. The main hall is a blaze of lamplight. As far as he can see, they’re the only two guests. Yasha leads him straight to the table at the very center. The moment they sit down, a waiter appears to greet them, delivering the menu with effusive smiles.

“What would you like to order?” asks Yasha. “I recommend the orange-light crab. It’s a chef’s specialty here.”

There’s only two chairs at this table; they sit across from each other. It looks like no one else is coming. The girl gazes earnestly at 329; he has no choice but to look down at the menu. It’s written in incredibly florid cursive calligraphy. He can’t understand it.

“You can eat orange-light crabs?” he says.

The mutant creatures have hard, thick exoskeletons. From the shell to the meat inside, their radiation content is horrifying. Hunters hate them. They form packs, can jump five meters into the air, and don’t even contain any profitable parts to extract.

“As long as you process them properly,” says Yasha, giving the waiter a nod. He bows, takes two steps back, and retreats speedily.

She starts to talk about the procedure for processing orange-light crabs, from the mechanical shell removal to the repeated separation treatments for the crabmeat. Her conversation flows smoothly, refined yet humorous; she fully lives up to the role of host. Yet this chat has a meticulously polished flavor to it, different from how she normally speaks. 329 doesn’t know if there’s a reason behind it, or if all upper class people are like this at the dinner table. And then he remembers that he doesn’t actually know what Yasha is “normally” like. They don’t know each other that well.

The waiters wheel over a platter so enormous it takes both of them to carry it to the table. When the lid is lifted, a light aroma drifts out. A car-sized orange-light crab, after treatment, is reduced to a small dish of transparent flesh, with a few side limbs the thickness of bamboo poles arranged beside it. Yasha takes up the dining knife and the mallet from the table, efficiently dismembering a leg and setting the meat on 329’s plate.

“Bon appetit!” she says.

The girl makes no move to eat. After she peels out the crab meat, she wipes her hands and sits there watching him. 329 gives up on trying to guess the motives of the rich and powerful. He takes up the fork, impales the entire strip of crab meat, and stuffs it into his mouth.

He’s barely eaten today; he’s hungry enough that he’s willing to eat anything. He rapidly gulps it down, and immediately gets the feeling that he’s desecrating a delicacy. Orange-light crabs, which even beggars don’t dare eat, become springy and flavorful after treatment. It’s delicious.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Yasha says happily. “I love it too! I always save some space in the cargo hold for orange-light crabs. There’s machinery for processing meat in the unmanned planes. Sometimes I bring them straight back and cook them myself. Next time I can do it for you!”

329 looks up between chews. As if sensing what he doesn’t say, Yasha gives a small smile. “Not very alpha of me, right?”

329 immediately shakes his head. He needs to deny it out loud, but his mouth is full—Yasha’s been peeling more crab for him, mixing the solid meat inside the legs with the tender slurry from the torso, alternately dabbing on sauce or spreading on toast, lovingly setting down each in front of him in turn. Yasha waves a hand, indicating that he should continue eating. “That’s perfectly all right. You’re hardly the only one to think so!”

She wipes her hands again. In a moment’s time, she’s already gone through all the legs. She leans back in her chair, spoons herself some more crab meat, and starts to talk again.

“Mama thinks I should cut my hair. It’s been a year since I presented; Alphas shouldn’t keep their hair this long. But I like my hair—no way I’m cutting it.” Yasha grimaces, twirling a strand on her finger. “I’m the youngest child in my family. I have four older brothers and sisters, one beta and three alphas. They all thought I’d be an omega…but they would’ve been fine with that. There’s enough potential heirs already. Papa didn’t want to bother with raising another one, or maybe he was being considerate of Mama, so he let Mama take charge of my education. Mama was the one who brought me up. Papa’s a terror to my older siblings, but with me he’s happy to turn a blind eye. I’m really lucky.”

After eating three legs, 329’s stomach finally stops burning. He ate too quickly; he hiccups. Yasha immediately pours him a drink and hands it to him.

“Please wait, the soup will arrive shortly,” she says.

329 didn’t see when she ordered them, but dish after dish begin to arrive in twos and threes, always at the most suitable moment. She moves quickly, dining, helping 329 through foods he’d never seen before, threading conversation into every gap, and simultaneously somehow still managing to maintain perfect manners. The entire time, she watches 329, her gaze hot. It makes him prickle with unease; he swings between suspecting some secret tampering in the food she hands him, and expecting that halfway through the meal she’ll fuck him where he sits. Only after half an hour of uneventful eating does 329 realize that her heated gaze doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with sexual desire. It might be more akin to a child tossing down bread crumbs in the square, craning her neck to watch the pigeon eat.

Either way, this pigeon eats very well tonight.

The majority of the dishes are astonishingly delicious, or perhaps, extremely well-suited to his tastes, dishes he didn’t even realize he’d like before eating. One soup tastes deeply familiar, comforting. The alcohol in the sweet soup warms him all over, returning feeling to his hands and feet, filling his head with a humid haze. Yasha keeps talking, gradually losing the stately refinement of a host, gradually even losing even the sense of a main thread, wandering off topic left and right, like an ordinary chattering kid—the sort who runs you half to death.

And sometimes, you just need to talk.

“I’m…an only child,” 329 says softly. “My mama died really young. My pa was a hunter for more than a decade. He got badly sick. I was too young then to go hunting myself, so I washed the other hunters’ protective clothing.”

He regrets it almost immediately after he opens his mouth. There’s no point to saying this, no need. 329 waits to be interrupted, hoping his impulsive words will be drowned in her bright, clear voice. But the moment his mouth opens, Yasha’s mouth shuts. She listens with all her attention, leaning forward.

“Sounds really dangerous,” she says, after 329 falls silent. “That dust and radiation?”

“Not as dangerous as what the the real hunters went through,” 329 says, shaking his head. "Most hunters eventually die in the radiation zone, and even those who survive rarely escape radiation poisoning.”

“But some of them only become stronger. It seems miraculous,” she says.

“Only a small number of lucky people are immune to radiation poisoning,” answers 329.

“And then what happened?” Yasha urges. “You became a hunter too?”

“Yes,” 329 says simply.

That sounds right, but 329 doesn’t remember. That section of memory is blurry after the surgery. He became a hunter before he even presented, when he was about the same age as Yasha is now. It seems that his life was linked to his crime from very early on.

“I remember that for a while the government had a bounty on mutant heads. That was when the hunters were active in greatest number,” says Yasha. “The hunters had a song, called We Bring the Heads Back , right? We bring the heads back, might be theirs or ours… ”

Yasha starts singing. Her voice is sweet, but she has the tune down perfectly. The melody triggers 329’s memories. He remembers this, remembers this clearly. When he worked at the repair station, the hunters would return singing, banging on their weapons, slapping their battered modded planes. Complete strangers would sing together, like pirates in the stories of old. We bring the heads back, might be theirs or ours … Yasha sings those two lines over and over, as if she only knows those two lines. 329, inwardly singing along, finally can’t resist continuing it for her.

“ …Sometimes in the backseat, sometimes on the shoulders, ” he sings. “ If I can’t make it, please bring them back for me, trade theirs for gold coins, return mine to my family .”

His voice is low and raspy, but more suited for this song than sweetness. Yasha listens, chin in hand, quietly humming along. It’s a strange feeling. When he was still a child, he, too, hummed along to the hunters returning in triumph. Many young cleaners would hum along in admiration, imagining themselves soaring out of the Protected Area, charging into that dangerous sky and returning with voices raised in song.

He’d once dreamed. He’d once raised his voice in song. But when his mind returns from its sojourn, it’s as if everything’s ended. There’s nothing left. Exiles are confined to specific districts. The area he can’t leave is still some distance away from the outskirts. There are no hunters here. His memories of this song remain at many years’ distance. He doesn’t know if the hunters still sing it anymore.

“It’s an old song,” 329 says.

“Not that old. You know it,” laughs Yasha.

“It’s older than you.” 329 thinks for a moment. “Maybe even older than me.”

“Songs and legends naturally outlive humans,” says Yasha. “Perhaps people will still be singing this song after we’re both dead.”

Her words startle 329. Sometimes she sounds like a spoiled brat, other times like a sage. Or maybe she’s neither. Maybe she’s simply her, and either label is a futile attempt from the outside to define her. For some reason, hearing her talk like this makes something loosen up inside him.

It’s an amazing meal. They eat for a long time; Yasha doesn’t call a stop, so 329 continues to eat steadily, wishing he had a second stomach to store all this food with. And as long as he doesn’t stop, Yasha doesn’t call a stop. They sit across from each other, extending the dinner deep into the night. There’s no one to rush them, no one to interrupt them, no fear of an angry boss or anything. It’s like lying under a lion’s paw, thinks 329, suddenly. You don’t have to worry about vultures anymore.

Yasha gradually falls silent. She watches 329, hand propping up her cheek, idly stirring at her orange juice with a straw. 329 watches her eyes go from round to half-shut, her head nodding. It makes him feel…he doesn’t know how to say it, only that he wants to laugh.

“I’m done eating. Thank you,” says 329.

“Ah, are you? You’re welcome!” says Yasha, blinking. She sits up straight and surreptitiously wipes away the drool of sleep. “Let’s go back!”

She stands up and waves over a waiter to talk to. She’s slightly overcompensating, the picture of chipper spirits, as if she never drifted off. Afterwards, she walks over to 329 and asks for permission to hold his hand; permission received, she takes 329’s arm, clinging to him like a little bird. “We don’t have to drive back,” she advises. “I need to go back for the night, but maybe we can take a walk around…huh, you’re not wearing shoes? Aren’t you cold?”

She only now realizes. 329 doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he looks at her. He doesn’t know how to answer.

Yasha hesitates after asking the question. She must have realized that no one willingly goes to work barefoot. “Please allow me to gift you a pair of shoes,” she says. “I’ll deliver them to your place tomorrow!”

329 really doesn’t have much faith in her common sense. If she gives him a pair of nice shoes, he’s certain to be robbed or even mugged. He politely declines her suggestion, telling her there’s no need, his own shoes are perfectly fine.

They ride the motorcycle back, the same way they came. Yasha actually doesn’t enter his place after him. 329 sounds her out by bringing up tonight’s bill (there’s no way he can afford it, and he doesn’t have any other way to repay her,) but Yasha shakes her head.

“It was my honor to dine with you,” she says. Abruptly, she blushes, and adds in a mosquito-like voice, “And I accidentally ate a little too much today. I’m, er, not in a condition suited for exertion…Good night! Sweet dreams!”

She gives him a swift smile, gets on her motorcycle, and is soon gone.

The next day, on the morning shift, the factory is one worker short. He hears there was an accident, the guy might lose his legs. 329 opens his locker. His shoes are inside. A card is tucked in the laces. There’s nothing written on it, only a pink 💗.