Chapter Text
*
career academy
is this what you want, yuu? chris’s father asks, broad quarryman’s shoulders bowed in the doorway. his glasses are dropping off the edge of his crooked nose, wilted frames and lens glare. chris can’t read the look in his face, barely understands it at the tender age of eleven-going-on-twelve. kaname manaka is going, chris states simply, so kouichirou is going. and where kouichirou goes, chris doesn’t have to say, i go too. kouichirou had approached him with the idea after class, career academy enrollment form clutched in one fist. do you want to come with, kouichirou had politely inquired, hope a small tender thing in his face, like chris attending would be the next best thing, and chris had answered yes; had been unable to summon a single scrap of disagreement, because what had chris and kouichirou ever been but friends, buddies, partners in crime?
at first chris’s father had been ecstatic--your son will be a great asset to the academy, the letter had read, y looping in a slick gold curlicue--but enthusiasm had, over time, collapsed into something like reluctance, empty nest syndrome, a fear of letting go. chris’s father knows that this is for the best, knows that acceptance is a ticket to survivability, a one-way train to success. after all, career academy graduates become peacekeepers and capitol guards, and chris will be a good soldier. my boy, chris’s father says, holding chris close. he’s missing his usual dramatic flair, a comedian widower without an audience. you’ll always have a home here.
kouichirou catches chris packing his knapsack for the train. chris, kouichirou calls out hesitantly. behind him, kaname’s got both hands tucked into his pockets, pants slung low. chris turns toward them, tying the knots and sealing the deal. what is it? kouichirou holds out a carefully wrapped package. from the academy, he blurts, but mostly from us, we fundraised it. he even offered to publicly shave his head, kaname comments, much to kouichirou’s chagrin. that was supposed to be a surprise! kouichirou exclaims. chris eyes kouichirou’s head of dark hair. the change is subtle, he remarks. he’s going to do it tomorrow, kaname explains, and knocks his elbow against kouichirou’s. in front of the station. at nine. getting second thoughts? the corners of chris’s mouth have never felt so tight before. it seems that a lot of people want to see you bald. kouichirou raises his eyes to the ceiling in supplication. it was supposed to be a surprise, he repeats, and comes in for a one-armed hug. i just thought--i don’t know. i thought i had to do something to show i--it’s just shaving my head, i… we’ve got you covered, kaname says, carefully. chris exhales into kouichirou’s shoulder. you should shave your eyebrows to complete the look, he suggests after a long moment. kouichirou snorts under his breath. not you, too, he mutters, kaname’s been on my back the whole week.
under the sun, kouichirou’s pale scalp is as bright as a lightbulb. chris rubs it for good luck. too bad about the eyebrows, he teases, slipping into a grin. is this a long-term change? kaname wants to know instead. it was a one-time offer, kouichirou manages through the embarrassment, a one-time, limited edition, special offer. they gather for a group hug, chris sandwiched in a dogpile consisting of kouichirou, kaname, and other year-five students at the career academy; it’s hard to think about killing anyone when you’re in a warm, confusing pile of arms and legs and people clutching your shoulders chanting, do us proud, return victorious, you’re our best bet.
as the train pulls out of the station, chris waves and waves and waves until his arm begins to ache and faces start blurring into skin tone gradients and career academy colors. kouichirou’s shining head is the last thing chris sees before the people in the station fade into concrete. it’s perfect. chris laughs until he's sore, the ache buried in his gut. it’s too perfect. he recounts this to kouichirou over video-chat, and kouichirou blushes and grumbles and tries not to look too pleased when chris smiles back at him.
*
the 75th hunger games: quarter quell
the first thing chris thinks when he meets kataoka is career. he tries to recall what it means to be career, to devote a childhood to preparations for murder, except kataoka remains inscrutable behind dark lenses and dark suit, surrendering nothing. you’re not going to win, kataoka says to him. you’re going to survive.
chris steals small pockets of free time to video-chat with kouichirou. neither of them look as young as they were a year ago, careless and carefree with nothing to lose and everything to gain. sunlight, glory, gold as soft as silt from district four. fame, the right to remembrance. chris feels the burden of kataoka’s old, old grief and learns a lesson in fear each coming day. i was talking to kaname, kouichirou says, he’s got some good pointers and i took notes for you so you could. you know. blue light pools in the hollows of kouichirou’s face strangely, catching conflicting emotion in each deep curve like water in dark cracks and gullies. happiness, that chris will be able to prove himself; fear, that chris might die; and a little hesitation, the wheels in his mind turning: maybe this is wrong, maybe we were wrong all along.
you’ve gotten thinner, chris observes instead. kouichirou flushes a little, rubbing the back of his neck. yeah, he admits, i’ve been staying up a little late. yeah? yeah. i don’t, kouichirou starts, and stops in frustration. i don’t like seeing you like this. damn it, chris, it was supposed to be so good. it still can be, chris says reassuringly, listening for approaching footsteps. kouichirou dips his head. sorry, i didn’t mean to be so-- it’s fine, chris cuts in, not impatiently, just smoothly. kouichirou digs so many graves for himself, laying to rest too many tiny pieces. it’s just good to hear your voice again. listen, i have to go, someone’s-- kouichirou nods once, a brief smile filling his face, and chris closes the screen with a snap of a finger.
the diamond silhouette of someone’s shadow cuts over chris’s back and left leg. chris expects a reprimand, maybe a scolding--his academy instructor had made him write over and over again, career attachments are short-lived and unfulfilling, short-lived and unfulfilling, short-lived--but kataoka only nods once, his expression warm and approving. the people you love are your anchor, kataoka says. don’t let go of them, chris.
we’re here to play a clean game, chris says, top of his age group and afraid for his life. the district ones and fours laugh. no game is clean, says the district one girl, and later, when chris takes off her head in one clean swing, chris realizes that she’s right.
they’re waiting out the volcanic event in the second level when two cannon booms go off. it’s not until later that he realizes that one of his original district partners had passed with them. d’you regret it, zaizen asks abruptly as chris skins a small fanned lizard mutt. chris barely passes a glance zaizen’s way, wiping blood on the ground. i regret this lizard, yes, chris jokes, struggling to cut out the spines, and zaizen mutters something that sounds like they don’t come out that way, bastard. the spines do, as chris discovers, come out the other way, and dinner is raw and tasteless and lean. before chris falls asleep, he admits to zaizen, i don’t regret meeting you, but i do regret leaving her behind. zaizen only nods once, arms folded against his chest, and never talks about regrets again.
maybe chris falls first, or maybe zaizen does, but chris is the one who starts it. a touch to the elbow, not to steady but out of companionship. shoulders bumping, like they’re walking back from school instead of avoiding loose earth and sand pits. teasing when zaizen slips in mud, sighing when he ends up in the same situation. too many opportunities to kill, overlooked, and too many small victories, like learning how to stand close together and the right amount of pressure to apply when holding hands. it all seems strangely significant in retrospect, like climbing a staircase after injury, retracing footsteps to reclaim something lost. the doctors inform chris that the concussion from the pit took nothing from him, that his memory will be fine, except chris finds himself circling holes in conversation, toeing the edge of disremembrance. it’s disconcerting, being unable to retain important details, forgetting the texture of zaizen’s hair, the right way to remove a fanned lizard’s spine. i am a new person, chris thinks, nauseous. maybe not even the right one. (soon, he begins keeping a notebook. the soft leather of the cover comforts him, as do the notes he takes. oatmeal this morning, he records, and fish for dinner. visited the quarry, and talked about this. insurance, the doctors surmise. preventable losses, chris demurs, and tucks the book into his breast pocket. he’ll never forget again.)
shit, zaizen swears under his breath, shit, shit, hurry up. chris steadfastly ignores him, sucking blood from the snakebite and spitting it out, bringing his mouth back and then sucking again. it’s necessary, and zaizen understands it, yet when chris lets go of him zaizen’s still resentful somehow. i did it to save you, chris says, and zaizen scowls. you don't think you shouldn't have? he retorts, briefly shaken out of his brooding. chris frowns. was i supposed to let you die? an odd kind of anger starts to surface, except zaizen deflects with a muttered see, that's what i mean, you're fucking trouble. later, as zaizen kisses his lower lip with unusual tenderness, chris begins to understand what zaizen is so afraid of.
zaizen is dead, his short life punctuated by a cannon shot, face emblazoned in the sky. at first chris doesn’t believe it: a dream, he tells himself, a dream, trying to forget, trying not to know, except he does, he has to, because the tears make his face ache, burnt and peeling and dry. it can’t be zaizen, his mind keeps repeating. it can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t. but it is, and there’s no way around it, not when he uncovers zaizen’s axe, not when he falls through the foliage into a pit and bashes his shoulder open for the second time. not when the district one girl follows him in and wheels on him, teeth bared and only just holding together, her entire side blackened by gangrene. you, she says, and sounds utterly calm. hefting zaizen’s beautiful axe, using zaizen’s grip, chris takes one measured step forward. me, he answers.
*
victory tour
he’ll see footage later, after asking kataoka repeatedly for them, please let me see them, i don’t care if it’s edited or unedited, please let me see zaizen again, and it’s zaizen running hard stumbling crawling he’s not crying but cursing everything and he goes down fighting which is very in style if you ask anyone and of course they switch cameras to do a panoramic shot of the arena while there’s audio playing of zaizen getting torn apart but then the camera turns back and its zaizen disappearing under a pile of mutts and he’s screaming chris’ name (they skip the part where he cries that he wants to go home and curses out panem) and there’s a shot of the sky as a cannon goes off and chris is like is that how i got all those bandages, the whetstone for the perfect edge on the ax that severed the head of the last tribute standing in my way, is that why there was that bowl of soup, is it because of this?
district seven is the sixth in the victory tour line-up. kataoka gives him a few encouraging words backstage, but nothing can dispel the urgent need to run, to hide, to repent in any way. i’m sorry, he wants to say, for your loss, for your son, for your friend. pr would have conniptions, chris thinks, and steps onto the wooden stage built by coerced labor and nails forcibly reappropriated from local building projects. the stylists have dressed him accordingly for weather and time of day; chris doesn’t spend time on it, doesn’t remember, doesn’t care. this is how it has always been, this is how it always will be: he is a victor, a tribute, a mouthpiece. there are four families to face, instead of two, and four hollow-eyed holograms to remember.
zaizen gazes back at him, preserved in perfect detail down to the pores. beneath the projection, zaizen’s parents are holding each other. he had been an only child, chris realizes. his parents’ arms look so empty. we know, their eyes say. we know better than you do. the quarter quell has not been kind to us, chris begins, unable to look away in spite of pr’s warnings to scan the crowd, not linger on a few faces. forty-eight tributes, and four of your children. he recognizes zaizen in the shape of his mother’s eyes, the texture of his father’s hair; wonders if zaizen’s hairline would've receded in the same way if he’d had twenty years more. young lives, contributed and lost, chris says, and stops. there are people nodding in the audience, like he’s saying the right things, and that frightens him more than the people who look like they want to jump onstage and end him.
the rehearsed speech is slipping out of his hands. behind him, kataoka goes stiff. reminders of the sacrifices we make and the prices we pay to sustain liberty, the next line reads, but the hologram is so real. it’s like his heart is breaking all over again, like he’s falling into the pit all over again, a huge current of loss towing him under, he can’t breathe, his chest feels too tight, his hands are shaking, he gazes into the sea of faces and it’s too much, too much.
excuse me, he manages, cutting himself mid-sentence. he remembers to take a bow and walks stiffly offstage, steps echoing in the sudden hush, nails creaking under his weight. no one stops him, of course they don’t, and he can almost hear the zoom of the cameras as they pan to follow his disappearing figure. at the last minute, rather than escaping into the train, he takes a detour and heads into the woods. he doesn’t go very far into unfamiliar terrain, but he finds a nice fallen log and sits. zaizen’s voice is in his head. just breathe, hold on, take a breath, and chris sits there for what feels like hours. just sits and inhales and lets himself sink deeper and deeper. it feels like falling asleep, except the only peace he sees is the back of his eyelids.
one of us has to live, chris remembers zaizen saying. they’d been taking shelter in an easily defensible alcove, high ground, ignoring the uncomfortable combination of heat rash and bacterial infection. backed up against a wall, chris hadn’t known what to say: yes? no? no, i won’t kill you, but yes, i’ll live? it hadn’t seemed possible, then, life without zaizen, zaizen without him, though eventually it did. it had to.
tragic, the talk show hostess gushes. absolutely tragic, that you and-- chris listens patiently, inwardly seething, don’t say his name, don’t say his name. she doesn’t, perhaps having forgotten it already. star-crossed, districts two and seven, she continues, so how do you feel, chris? looking for new love in this booming market--cheers from the crowd, too loud with morphling in his blood--or waiting for the clouds to clear? he uses the audience’s lingering laughter to compose himself, control that beating heart, that pounding blood, the heat rising to all open surfaces of his body. i’m taking my time, chris answers, as honest as he can be, and the hostess awwws. backstage, pr tells him, you should’ve taken that as an opening, thought up a clever line. chris thinks, i’ve got no capacity for clever lines; nods politely, shakes off the comment, and walks to his room, downing two, three sleeping pills and falling into bed. everything slows instantaneously. a curious idea occurs to him, eclipsing all other thought: if i could wash the laughter off my skin (blue sleep breaking over him the way a wave crashes over a body, the purple branching vein-work of an eyelid, the long smooth grip of zaizen’s axe) then i would.
his dreams during the victory tour consist of strange, disjointed images, the broken fingers of proper nightmares. a tribute in the cornucopia crying while their body melts like gold over a grill. a girl’s laughter as he tells a joke between classes, heard through a windowscreen and the background buzz of flies. himself smashing axes into boxes and picking out little lizard mutt skulls with names on them. in that same dream, kataoka berating him for killing things who’ve been taught nothing else, just like chris has been taught nothing else. eventually, he switches out his sleeping pills for a new brand with a stronger dosage. the dream fragments disappear and lucidity returns. he's not sure which poison he prefers.
you know, i always thought you district people looked kind of. the sponsor gestures. you know. yes? chris inquires patiently, half-hoping for strange gossamer montages to come back and cocoon him. it is hard being sober, it is hard being defenseless, and it is hard to stay away from substances. the sponsor shakes his head. exotic, he tries. invulnerable. chris recalls district two, the familiar faces of its residents, the way his skin had split open at the seams like oh. bleeding is second nature. it must seem that way for someone who’s never been there, chris responds diplomatically, and the sponsor smiles with sharpened teeth. maybe you can show me a part of it. skin crawling, chris smiles back. whenever you’re in town, he answers, gentle and inoffensive, and dismisses himself. kataoka warns him about punishment for refusal. it doesn’t come, not for this one. later, maybe, he reminds himself, and treads carefully.
he remembers watching kazuya from district 9 while in class thinking, wow, what a scrappy little kid, and then: he's in this to win. they go over footage of all the tributes, critique their methods, the teachers are merciless in their assessment and the curriculum is all analysis of the games because that’s all anyone wants to talk about during class anyway. career kids have it tough too. they even manage to sneak in some extra footage that went unseen at the public viewing. from your very own sponsors, the teachers say with a laugh. now chris is meeting kazuya in person. 14 and forcibly climbing through the awkwardness of emerging adulthood and adolescence with too much style and grace, so much so that it’s unnatural. congratulations, he says ironically to chris at the after party. presses a strong drink into his hand with a wink. to help, he adds and wanders away. chris downs it in one go and it burns so badly, tastes like all those days in the sun of the arena sizzling right down his throat. he coughs and kazuya is back at his arm with fruit juice this time.