Chapter Text
Light is dappled across Kuuno's room as he lies on the floor, wrecked of speech and conversing only in exasperated groans. His left shoulder hurts like shit and one of his eyes is puffy with blood pooling beneath the pallid, tender skin.
"Spit it out, kid," Vicquemare says, gentle as ever, "Who did this?"
Kuuno's many things, but he is not a snitch. Even with his flesh bruised, even with his shirt muddied, even with a pounding headache that makes nausea explode in his guts. "Fuck off," he grunts out between clenched teeth, and then turns on his good side and curls up into a ball of red hair, beaten body, blue polyester and white cotton. His lunch doesn't crawl up his throat, but only through immense concentration.
"Suit yourself," the man sighs, leaning in the doorway. The evening light doesn't reach his face, only worships at his feet like Kuuno has seen people do in the shade of Dolorian idols. "Figure this shit out yourself, if you want. But don't come crying if you lose a tooth or two next time."
"Cuno's not a weeping wimp," he replies, although they both now he cries fairly often these days, "And there won't be a next time."
"And you know that because...?"
Kuuno clutches at his stomach. "Because I know. Now leave me alone."
Vicquemare snorts and uncrosses his arms. "First-person pronouns, huh? The kid is serious." Being the shithead he is, he doesn't close the door when he leaves. By the time Kuuno finally gets up from where he lay, it is dark outside.
>>>>>
School's a bitch. There's not much else to say. Agathe and Mathéo whisper in the hallway when he passes, Mrs Kinsley-Bernand licks her finger before turning the page in her textbook and the old man mopping the floors barely sees through his cataracts and overgrown bangs. The Patel kid gets a basketball to the dick five minutes before lunch break ends and Kuuno eats only half of the sandwich he stole from Harry's plate in the morning. He's jittery. Not from anything in his system, to his dismay. But something deeper in his blood than that.
Nothing's new. Nothing's good, or beautiful, or interesting. Kuuno's in high school four days a week and in the RCM youth academy on Wednesday afternoons and entire Fridays. Sometimes also on the weekends. He passes his classes – not well, but it doesn't bother anyone. Nobody expects him to succeed in anything. Nobody wants him to. Not even he, himself.
Sometimes Harry does, but in that weird way of his. Says it's fine if he scrapes by in school as long as he learns the things that interest him. Fine if he fumbles the paperwork and bullshit theory RCM lessons that don't actually prepare you for the real job. "You gotta remember the important stuff," he'll say, tapping his temple. "How to do it all. Actually do it. The rest you can improvise. Learn how people work, how the world works. Learn to listen."
Spring combs through the city, pulls at the scalp beneath the streets. Everything flinches with unexpected warmth that doesn't last until nightbreak and pollen pollutes the canal alongside the piss of drunks and rat corpses. Whatever winter put to sleep now awakes with a mumble. Wearily. Slowly. Yet all at once.
Kuuno has one class left for the day - the one in which Monsieur Ouvoirée squints at his own notes and teaches like he is hearing about the subject for the first time himself. He's not fond of Kuuno either – gave him a minus for refusing to draw a brain and its most important parts. Kuuno thinks it's a bullshit assignment. Thinks of Harry's voices and how sometimes Kuuno watches his own life go by like a movie without sound and – fuck that shit, how should he put that on a paper? Sketch it, label it?
Instead of the teacher and his ugly mug, however, it's the office secretary – Sharpface they call her – that walks in instead, and behind her a shy-looking girl with a boring face and even more boring oversized clothes and the least boring eyes Kuuno has ever seen.
"Quiet down," Sharpface hisses, stomping one of her one-inch heels. "Everybody, there's a new girl joining your class. She's a bit late for the day - and semester - since she just moved here abruptly, but be nice to her, alright?" The woman then pushes the girl farther to the front for everybody to see, displaying little of the niceness she's asking of the class. There's an awkward silence for a moment, until the new kid realises it is her turn to talk, squirming under the attention of a bunch of fellow sixteen-year-olds.
"Uh, hi," she says, picking at the skin around her nails. She looks especially small in what is a whale of a skirt, although she's tall enough for a girl. Hand-me-downs, probably. She's swimming in them - the sweat brimming her hairline not helping Kuuno's imagining of her wading against waves.
She looks around the room, story-keeping eyes jumping back and forth. Then they land on Kuuno, like a firm hand on a shoulder. "My name is Annette."
>>>>>
The cicadas almost drown out the noise of traffic, screaming like there is no tomorrow. And sometimes Kuuno thinks there is none, but he'd be a fool to care. Insects are no fortunetellers anyhow, nor is the path he takes home an omen.
He drags his feet as always. His pig friends usually come home later than him, and he doesn't like being alone in the apartment. Something about it is suffocating. Like a snoring beast awaits, ready to wake up out for blood. It's stupid. Kuuno's stupid. Not in the head, but in the heart. And fucked he is in both. He also needs to get some movement in. Years of speed – in velocity, not substance – have rendered the constant being seated at school a torture to his bones. He misses running wildly, climbing over gates, tossing rocks.
Behind him trails the not-so-new new girl. Just his luck to now have a stalker on top everything, but she remains at quite a distance. When Kuuno stops to stretch or to balance on the stone fence or to throw his middle finger up at a squawking crow, so does she come to a halt, gripping the strap of her backpack. It's so huge he's surprised she doesn't tumble backwards. It's like she does her shopping at stores for giants.
So they keep walking. The air is thick and uncomfortable and Kuuno's ankle hurts a bit from when he twisted it on a jog with Jean. But Kuuno doesn't care. A dog barks in the distance. Time goes by in a blur of wanting it to either stop or speed.
>>>>>
He finally loses patience when they arrive at his block. When she walks around the corner, he turns back to her, scowling. To his surprise, she does not shrink under his gaze.
"The fuck are you following Cuno for, huh? You think we're buddy-buddies just 'cause I used to scare the shit out of your Ma in her stupidass bookshop? Can't even walk home in peace. Ya think you can tail the Cuno without him catching whiff o' it? Creep."
He immediately feels a bit guilty for snapping. Harry has taught him that. How to be sorry. He doesn't overdo it like Harry does, though. And being sorry doesn't mean he'll backpedal either.
Annette sighs. "So you remember?"
Kuuno tsks in return. "Cuno doesn't remember shit, but I'm not slow."
"You know I just live here, right? Well, not here. But down the street." She points towards a row of sad-looking houses. But then again, all houses look sad here. Martinaise is worse, though, and they both know it.
"Well, go home then. But don't try looking which house Cuno will enter."
"Don't worry about it," Anette mutters. "If you stay out of my business, I'll stay out of yours." She rushes past him, without looking back.
Something tells Kuuno they'll be more involved in each other's business than he'd like. Unlike Harry, he shakes these kinds of feelings off.
>>>>>
His face is fucked for weeks, after. Blotched, bloated. Looking like an upended pot-bellied pig had a fuck with a blobfish. He looks in the mirror proudly, anyhow. He's not a pussy.
Harry fusses over him. Paws at his cornflower skin and pouts and tries to disinfect and console like Kuuno's five years old and still crying for a mother that won't wake up. Like he's not sixteen and had death halo his shoulder blades for a decade.
"You're sure you're okay?"
"Yes, Harry," the teen groans. Saying the cop's actual name always gets the man to relent. "Stop fussing over the Cunmeister."
The pighead draws out his bottom lip even further. It looks inhumane. Abominable, like those pictures Kuuno had once seen of kids that were the byproduct of generations of incest. Especially with Harry's naturally uneven and stiff jaw. "You know you can tell me anytime what happened, right? Or Jean."
Kuuno rolls his eyes. Hops off the kitchen counter, wraps his half-eaten sandwich in tinfoil and stuffs it in his jacket pocket.
"Or you can talk to Judit? Do you need someone maternal? Kuuno? Kuuno, or what about Kim, then?"
He only slams the door behind him, ignoring Harry's repeated calls. Looks like he'll be early for school for once.
>>>>>
Kuuno's just turned nine last week. Rain is pouring in buckets, washing over Martinaise with no means to stop. Kuuno shivers – his dad refuses to turn on the heater. Or hasn't paid the bills. But who cares. Kuuno's not the type to die from something as mundane as cold.
He sees her in the hallway. Standing like a ghost, or cryptid. Hunched over, the whites of her eyes like baring teeth. The stains on her skin and rat-bitten coat are dark and she smells of something Kuuno cannot place. Like something dead come back to life. Slightly like his mother, that week in late June.
They do not exchange words. Don't outright acknowledge each other except in stares. A minute passes, or maybe two, and then Kuuno continues about his day, leaves the building with his hood pulled over his head with plans to scavenge for some extra food.
When he returns an hour and a half later, she still stands there – like she'd been frozen in time while he'd left. He closes the door behind him, feeling her eyes on his back and hearing his father's faint drunken blabber, and trembles.
>>>>>
Annette and him are paired up for a history assignment. Kuuno considers bitching to the teacher about it but then thinks better than to do so. He's not that much of an asshole, and more importantly he has no friends he'd rather team up with anyway. Not a thing of pity, but just a fact. The sky is blue, grass is green and Kuuno and other kids don't get along.
(But the sky's appearance can change colours, Harry would say, were he here to read his thoughts, like he sometimes does. And grass can be sunbleached and dry.)
Annette doesn't seem to care much, either. Or she has the self control to not show any disdain. She just walks over to his desk as he's packing up for the day, shoves a paper with an address in his face and tells him: "Stop by tomorrow afternoon."
"Not even asking if Cuno's free? Dick move, eh."
To his surprise, she smiles. Politely, not fondly. "If you can't make it, make your own suggestion. Otherwise, see you tomorrow."
He squints at her, then nods. "Tomorrow," he repeats back, and then grabs his backpack and hurries off.
>>>>>
Mom's been dead for over 24 hours now. Kuuno's been counting, reading the clock. Holding up his fingers and then making a tally with a crayon on the underside of the desk. Mom would've been real proud – says he's real smart for his age. How he could already be enrolled in school. But that's all useless now.
Dad hasn't come back. He's been gone a lot lately. Always returns with flowers and apologies and kisses, though he smells like those wailing men Kuuno sometimes sees when they walk through the fishing village. The ones lifting their cans and bottles and shouting for the grace of an Innocence.
26 hours turn to 27. 28. 29. Kuuno's skin is starting to itch and his stomach has been growling. He had some yoghurt from the fridge earlier, but it just left him feeling sick. 30. 31. When he falls asleep against his will, he tallies up the hours he missed in one go. 32. The air is thick with sickness. 33.
The door is unlocked. Clumsy with noise as the man drops his keys to the floor in an attempt to wrangle it open with his hands full. The smell of roses, Fritte muffins and booze wafts in.
A minute later, the bags all clatter to the floor as well, as Kuuno's father stumbles to the bed where his woman lay like drifting in foam. He looks at the boy hunched beneath the table, baby fat cheeks streaked with dried tears.
"Why didn't you do anything?", he yells. His eyes are wide as saucers, corners of his mouth wet with spit and snot like a rabid animal. Kuuno shivering like a rabbit, ready to bolt. "Fuck, why didn't you do anything? Why? Why?"
>>>>>
"He can live with me," he overhears the discodumb pighead whispershout. "I can take care of him!"
The gruff-looking guy in the suit regards him silently for a second, then shakes his head and pinches his nose bridge. "Shitkid, you can't even take care of yourself. Do you even know where you live? Your place is a pigsty."
"Yeah, but- but where else would he go? His drunk father?"
"What, you think you're better?"
The pighead looks guilty, chewing at his bottom lip. Around them, the precinct is loud and reeks of coffee and sweaty men. "He'd have us, right? Jean?"
"Oh, fuck off, Harry," Jean, it seems, snarls. "You dragging me into your bullshit again? Your problems aren't my business!"
"He's not a problem. He's a kid. He's just a kid! You remember what it's like!"
That seems to work in making the other man soften. He exhales and then glances at Kuuno, who pretends to not be listening and is playing around with some of the biros and sticky notes from the desk he's sitting at, drawing dicks and dogs and slapping the paper everywhere. He's dragged his knees to his chin and with them his shoes up on the spinning chair despite everyone telling him not to do so. Kuuno doesn't fucking care.
"We should at least wait another year before goddamn cop classes. Make him keep up with normal school, first. You two can sleep at mine tonight. Don't even try to bother Judit, she's got enough on her plate with her actual family."
Harry's face lights up. He attempts to hug his pigbrother, but the other man just shoulderchecks him and sits down at his desk. "Tomorrow you get your shit together and clean out your apartment. Ask Kitsuragi for help, for all I care - but don't expect anything from me. This is the most I'm giving you two."
When Kuuno meets Harry's eyes, he's looking at him like the world has finally found salvation.
>>>>>
He shows up at Annette's doorstep like asked. It's the warmest day of the season so far and his shirt clings to his skin uncomfortably, but it's too late to turn back and get changed. It's also one of the nicest shirts he owns – not that he gives a shit about appearances.
Annette opens the door a split-second after he rings the bell, like she'd been waiting right behind it all this time. She doesn't greet him and instead just steps aside, smiles, and motions with her chin for him to come in. "Please take your shoes off," she adds, when he's about to drag dirt into their narrow hallway.
From what he can see at first glance, the apartment is tiny and entirely cluttered. It seems like a somewhat organised mess, however. Like the deluge of things sweeping over the brittle-looking furniture all slotted perfectly into its designated place.
"My room's the last one to the right," she mumbles, and walks ahead, expecting Kuuno to follow. He does. "Bathroom's this one. If you get hungry we gotta go to the store. There's not much here right now." He nods along.
The girl's room is, in stark contrast, rather barren. There's one poster on the wall of a movie Kuuno's never heard of – Pallid night at the neo-funk Cinema directed by Casey Marković – and a little mason jar with wilten dandelions and daisies on her nightstand, and that's about it. Her bed is unmade and her sheets have holes in them, her desk has three pencils and a dirty eraser on it and some loose paper sheets that appear to be the backsides of misprinted office forms and one of its legs has an old magazine under it to keep it from wobbling.
Kuuno takes it all in, and she watches him watch. There's surprisingly no anxiety to her about it. Like she knows he won't give a crap about shabby clothes and second-hand furniture. They did walk the streets of the same shithole of a place, after all.
He looks at at the cardboard box with novels under her bed. "You guys still run a bookstore?"
She shakes her head. "No, I guess it was doomed after all. But my mother got a good position at an office now. Anyway, let's just... sit down on the floor. The homework shouldn't take long anyway."
They go about it unexpectedly organised and quick. Read up on the topics in their textbook, take notes. Decide who will present each parts. It's easy and boring.
"You're pretty smart, you know?", Annette says to him, when they're wrapping things up for the day. "This worked rather well."
Kuuno sniffs and scratches his nose. "What? Didn't think Cuno had it in him, huh? Thought he's just a know-nothing-do-nothing?"
The girl is unfazed by his attitude. She looks down at her nails, brittle but neatly trimmed and then folds her arms in her lap. "You and C just seemed so... I don't know. Unapproachable. I guess I'm surprised you're so normal."
In sixteen years, nobody's ever called Kuuno normal before. There had been times where the label would've made him burst with anger, and other times he'd have begged for it. He's not sure which feeling he aligns with these days. "C and I were C and I. 'S just how it was. Things change all the time."
Annette hums in agreement. "People change, I guess. C's pretty different these days, too."
That stops Kuuno in his tracks. He almost chokes on his own spit and hides it by clearing his throat. "You-... you been talking with C? Is she around here?"
The girl tilts her head. "Yeah. Well, not often. And I guess she doesn't go by C anymore. We just cross paths sometimes. She sometimes shoplifts at the store I work at on Saturdays. But the owner's too stupid to notice. It's by the Zalazak crossing, like, thirty minutes from here by bus."
"Doesn't sound like she's changed much," Kuuno mumbles. His chest feels hot.
"No, she's changed quite a bit. I'm surprised, I kind of assumed you two stayed in touch. But I never asked her. She's pretty quiet. Maybe the three of us can-"
He gets up and leaves before she can finish her sentence. Doesn't stop running until he's home and falls face-first in his bed. Claws at his hair and screams.
>>>>>
It's been three days. Kuuno keeps thinking of this fairytale his mother once told him: about a nymph whose seatail was turned into legs – but with no mother to teach her how to walk she only stands in the spot where the spell was cast upon her. Standing there, she weeps upon the soil around her until daffodils and maybells grow so tall, a kind knight stumbles upon her, in awe of the flowers. He then leads her by her hand, teaching her how to take step after step. But the nymph had gone too long uneating, unsleeping and crying all water from her body. After the fifth step, she falls into his arms and dies.
Sometimes you save someone but it is already too late.
Fairytales are fairytales, though. In the janitor closet's doorframe stands no nymph, despite the puddle of rainwater and whatnot she's left around her. Her red hair frames her face manic and flamed. She still hasn't said a word.
Kuuno makes a decision, then. His father's drunk – still, not again – and the rain hasn't been letting up all week. He leaves the door open behind him as he enters the apartment. Takes off his wet jacket and puts on a second shirt and moth-eaten hoodie for warmth, and then pushes a plate of old hotdog pieces and soggy bread in the microwave. The smell of food wafts through the apartment and into the hallway.
It doesn't take long for her to sneak in, palming at the door and furniture in the process and continuously glancing back toward the hallway. When she spots the plate of warm food, her breath visibly quickens.
Kuuno eyes her, then puts the plate on the desk by the window. Wonders how many steps it may still take for her to fall over, like the nymph. After a while of them staring each other down, he decides to go take a shower. When he walks past her, he keeps distance. He never ends up closing the apartment door.
When he returns, hair still damp, he at first thinks she's left. But then he hears the sound of her running her fingers over the now empty plate of food and licking them and spots her, a dirty bundle of clothes and unkempt hair hunched beneath the desk. She doesn't look at him, although she must be aware he's come back. He decides to not mind and walks up to the fridge again to drink the last of the orange juice.
For a while they just coexist, like they'd known each other for so long that there was nothing to speak about. Then, she whispers: "He called me Cuno. Is that you?" She must be referring to his dad, whose snores echo from the bedroom by now. Kuuno nods, cracking his knuckles.
Then she taps the underside of the table. Thud thud. "What are the red lines for?", she asks.
Tally marks, he doesn't tell her. Not yet. For the 33 hours.
"If you're gonna stay, we gotta be a team," he replies instead. "For food and shit. And so the old man don't kill us."
She nods. Determined and young, but not innocent. When he walks over, they shake hands on it.
>>>>>
The bruises fade eventually, and with them goes the pain. As do the whispers in the school hallway and the concerned looks of teachers and the RCM officers leading the courses he's in. He hasn't spoken to Annette yet. He doesn't know how. But he will, in time. The end of summer has been crashing in, the season slipping away.
Harry's worry, however, remains. Though it's been there ever since they first met.
"What's for dinner today?"
Jean wrinkles his nose at Kuuno for talking with his mouth full of breakfast, but knows trying to train it out of him is futile. Especially when Harry does it, too. "Kitsuragi and Minot are coming over, so Harry's still pondering what to cook."
Visitors means fancy shit, for their standards. Harry gets the wanting-to-impress brain worms. Maybe he'll make barbecued ribs again.
Jean snaps the newspaper he'd been reading shut and leans back in his chair. "You know, Harry's still hoping you'll confide in him about the beating you took."
Kuuno scoffs. It's too early for shit like this. The robins have barely stopped singing for the morning. "Cuno didn't take no beating. You guys are going batshit over nothing."
"Yeah, sure. Just like we went batshit over nothing last time you relapsed and got yourself a concussion. Harry thought you'd–"
"Died. I know," Kuuno interrupts. Outside a motor carriage honks and a neighbour's footsteps echo through the stairwell. "Been two years, asshole. Have some faith."
Jean doesn't budge. "Then give us reason to trust you, kiddo." Kuuno has always hated that nickname in moments like these. "You've been in a mood lately. Barely even been complaining about school, you just come home and shut the door. And that's all fine with me, I don't panic like Harry does – especially not over a mid-puberty idiot like you. But you've got that look on your face like something's out to get you. Seen that one too many times with people to let that go."
Seen it in the mirror, he doesn't say.
"Cuno's got– he's got–"
The words aren't coming out. Thick and sticky as honey in his trachea, but by no means sweet. He won't cry, goddamnit. Not again.
"I'm sober," he spits out. His vision blurs. "You gotta believe me. But it's just – she's gone. I've fucked up. I should've never left her. Fuck, I-"
Jean grabs at his beard and inhales. "Ku– Kuuno, goddamnit. Who's she? What's going on?"
He realises then, that he has no name to call her by anymore.
>>>>>
Annette and him aren't friends. But they also aren't strangers. They ended up getting a 1‐ on their assignment, mainly for her shyness in presenting and his lack of "serious attitude", but a 1 is a 1. She smiled at him with satisfaction as they returned to their seats.
Since then, they occasionally walk home together. Shit-talking teachers, complaining about the weather and talking about books like a bunch of nerds. His favourites are Blood Meridian and Metamorphosis. She likes The Road and Narcissus and Goldmund.
He's not mentioned it to Annette, that he lives with Harry. Maybe she knows anyway, maybe word got around. It's not like Kuuno's ashamed – or maybe he is a little bit. He knows the RCM is riddled with absolute shitheads who abuse their power and deserve to get their heads kicked in and he knows he chose it all over sticking with Martinaise. Sticking with C. Sticking with his roots.
So he doesn't tell her, just like Jean and Harry never tell anyone outside of their friend group they're more than collegues, just like Annette doesn't bring up when he bolted from her room. Sometimes silence makes for better conversation.
"You could visit me at the shop on Saturdays, sometime. If you don't have training." They're balancing on a fence, Annette before him and surprisingly fast and steady. She has her arms spread like making a snow angel in the air.
"For what? Ain't got no money for that."
"For company. Barely anyone ever stops by. You can hang with me behind the counter and just duck and hide when someone comes in. I can even sneak us a bag of chips."
He purses his lips in thought. "You guys got cheese ones?" She jumps off at the end of the fence and he follows suit. Gravel and fallen spring blossoms crunch beneath the soles of their shoes.
"I'm not sure, Kuuno," she says, and he half-shivers at the sound of his name. "But we've got really good sour cream ones. Or paprika. You can have a look if you come over. I work from 9 until 6pm. Lunch break at 1, for 45 minutes."
He considers it. But then thinks about what she'd said before. Hates himself for thinking. And then hates himself for bringing it up by asking: "Is she gonna be there?"
The girl frowns for a second, until understanding dawns on her. "You mean C? I don't know. She just shows up randomly."
He doesn't add anything, just walks beside her. A man on his bicycle rushes past them and Annette startles, bumping into Kuuno with her backpack.
"She goes by Delta now, you know? Although I think she's still getting used to it herself... sometimes she doesn't react to it."
The blood in Kuuno's ear rushes, sounding like water. Like rainfall. He thinks of a nymph standing by the janitor's closet, boney and with shellshock-wet eyes.
He needs to see her again. He hopes it will never happen.
They've arrived at his apartment complex. "I can stop by this weekend," he yells after her as she heads away. She doesn't turn to look back, but he can tell she's smiling.
>>>>>
"It's like you're constantly looking over your shoulder," Judit tells him. She's having lunch with him because Harry and Jean got stuck with a case – Kuuno'd tried convincing her he's fine eating on his own, but she'd insisted.
"I'm not," Kuuno says. "You think the Cuno's crazy? The schizophrenic type? Just-"
Fuck off, he wants to say. But something about cursing in front of Judit has always made him feel a little guilty. It's like she's got some secret power akin to Kitsuragi's authoritative brow.
She smiles at him, patiently, and watches as he devours their Seolite take-out. They're by a public bench and table in the park near the precinct quarters. Sometimes she slips him an extra piece of meat, when she thinks he won't notice. "You're alert, is all I'm saying. Are you worried about something?" Her tone becomes a bit more hushed. "Or someone?"
Kuuno snorts. "Cuno's not worried. Ain't got nothing to worry about."
A gust of wind hits them and they scramble to make sure none of their napkins and plastic bags fly with it. The woman squints at the sky, where dark clouds are gathering right at the horizon. Not near, but nevertheless travelling their way.
"How's the new apartment?", she then asks, switching topics.
"Boring," he answers. "But better. More room. Jean and disco pig are fighting over where to put the couch."
Judit laughs. "Please tell me they got a new one and it's not that old thing from Harry's apartment. That thing barely counts as a couch anymore." She hides her smile behind her hand.
"It's new. But not the new kind of new. Some second-hand sh- uh, stuff. But Cuno doesn't care anyway. Cuno's got his own room now, that's all that matters."
The woman nods, slurping the last of her noodles and then checking her watch. "I imagine that's a relief after a bit over a year of sharing a room with Harry."
Has it been a year already? Whatever. Kuuno's not keeping track. He's done with counting hours. "Cuno's used to sharing rooms."
"This is a new chapter then," Judit says, as she waits for him to finish his portion of the meal as well. "A lot of changes, huh? That can be overwhelming."
She's talking to him like to a toddler. It makes Kuuno's arm hairs stand up. He doesn't need adults fawning over him so they can feel better about themselves. Sooner or later they'll give up on him anyway, even if they like to pretend it won't come to it. At thirteen, Kuuno's seen enough of it. He only indulges Harry in his domestic fantasies because, for the moment, it gives him a place to live.
"Keep that bullshit wisdom for your kids," Kuuno yawns, already tired of trying to dial down his language. "The Cuno's not afraid of change. He's not hooked on that static shit anyway. New is good. Got a kick to it. 'M no pussy about these things."
There's pity on her face now, but she's quick at schooling her expression back to something more neutral. "You know, I recently passed through Martinaise. Had to consult someone because of a crime downtown. Before I left, Harry told me to keep an eye out for a little girl. Said she's got hair like yours, though she's a bit younger."
Fuck Harry. Little snitch. Pigs are pigs, at the end of the day. Kuuno should've taken his actual pighead from the shack with him, so he can put it in the fridge for Harry to find tonight. "What's that got to do with me?" He scratches at his wrist, leaving angry red marks.
"I didn't see her. But we can still keep an eye out, okay? You don't have to look over your shoulder and hide it. It's okay to miss her."
But he left her there. He doesn't get to miss her. He wants to tell Judit as much, but he knows she'll freak out on him and think it's the saddest thing ever. That he needs her to go mother-mode and comfort him and assure him it's alright.
"If Cuno wanted to see her, he could find her. And she could find him. We always can. That's what we did. What we do."
They don't speak much more for the rest of the lunch break. It's fine. It's fine.
>>>>>
His right eye is so swollen he cannot see out of it. Kuuno's eight and tired. Bugs swarm in through the window. It's suffocatingly hot.
His father is rummaging through the cupboards, trying to find something. To take or eat or drink. He manages to rip one of the cabinet doors from its hinges and curses wildly, then tosses it in the corner of the room. Kuuno doesn't flinch – he's on the bed, trying to blend in with his surroundings.
"Fuck this motherfucking bullshit. Nothing in this shithole. You been eating all our food, you leech? Stuffing yourself while your father starves, huh? Answer me!"
But there's no words. Nothing to say. Blood drips down Kuuno's nose and he tries to gather it in his hands to not soil the bed sheets or his shirt.
His father raises his fist, like he's going in for another round, but then stops. He cackles, like a madman, for an excruciating minute. Then he grabs his coat from the hook by the door. "Whatever," he says, "Whatever. I'm leaving, you little parasite. If you wanted someone to take care of you, you should've kept your poor mother alive."
Then he's gone, and with him the fire. Although it is not just fire that is deadly, but smoke filling the lungs. There's a drip-drip-drip coming from their leaky faucet, weirdly in sync with the red gushing from Kuuno's face.
After a while of waiting – making sure his father's actually gone – he wobbles to the kitchen. He washes his hands in the sink, on his tiptoes so he can reach it, and takes a napkin to wipe his nose. It stings, but it's the least of his worries.
He sees it then, the little bag on the floor, half-hidden under their fridge. Almost looks like snow from where he stands. Snow kept in plastic.
This can't hurt more than anything else, he thinks, getting down on his knees to reach for it. When you fall, there's a short point where you're weightless in the air and flying.
Before you hit the ground, that is.
>>>>>
It becomes more common to see them together than apart until eventually, they are inseparable. Cuno and his "Cunoesse". Crazy & Insane.
A lot of people assume they are siblings. She's as close to a sister as he'll ever get, anyway, so he accepts this.
It takes a while for her to even have proper conversations with him. She just trails behind him, shouts at anyone who gets too close, presses her back to his back in the night.
Sometimes she freezes. Like she's that nymph again, and doesn't know how to take the next step. Calls herself a Näkki, all of a sudden. Grinds her teeth and hits her head. And then, when it passes, pretends it never happened. Sometimes he thinks she may genuinely not remember it.
Other times it gets late – the lights at the Whirling turned off and the wind whistling like a lover walking home. Kuuno's dad raging again, so they sit outside, freezing, and watch the water. Making out the little islet in the distance.
And she says: "He was so little."
Kuuno doesn't ask her about it. She gets different when asked questions. Scary, almost. So he doesn't ask. He listens. And when she stops speaking they walk home.
"He was so little," she says, "but he was really heavy at the end. I had to drag him by his feet and his head kept bobbing. Like those figurines you sometimes see, the ones who nod when you shake them. I was trying not to shake him, it was driving me insane."
They share anything they can get their hands on, when they sit together. Sandwiches, speed and one time even Samaran liquor.
Her hands shake, but he doesn't take them in his. His hands are cold, but she doesn't take them in hers.
"He was so little, but I had to do it. The Pig Parade wouldn't get it if they found me. They care about the killing but they don't care about the surviving. But he- he was like cattle, Kuuno. What's the difference between killing an animal to not starve and‐ I mean, I didn't. I didn't. It's nothing, but he was just. So small. And then so gone, so quickly. Pigs don't get what it's like. Where I'm from. They don't get that shit."
Sometimes she goes on for an hour or two. No breaks, until her voice gives out or she doubles over, sick from her high. Kuuno bumps his shoulder into hers.
"They're not getting us," he says. "None of these shitheads are ever getting us."
>>>>>
Harry's having another one of his episodes. Usually it's when they had a particularly rough case – dead kids or something – and Jean has to keep watch over him all night and calls Harry's A.A. sponsor to schedule a meeting, just in case.
Tonight he's on the couch, with his head in his hands. He's been sobbing, he's been yelling. His partner shushes him, tells him to mind the neighbours, and mind Kuuno having to sleep, but it's futile.
"I can't do it anymore, Jean. It's all hopeless. There's no use in being good."
Jean sits next to him. Hand on Harry's back and his head on his shoulder. "You know better than this, you fool. We made it through the winter, didn't we?"
"She was five years old! Five! Just, just a handful of years. I should've beaten her father to a pulp. How can you–"
Kuuno shifts behind his door. He's pulled it just the slightest bit ajar, watching the two men in the living room.
"People can be awful. You know that. I don't know what else to tell you. The world is ending and we get to love regardless."
That solicits a laugh out of Harry. "Jean-jean, are you just plagiarising the speech I gave you two weeks ago? Are you repeating my own words back at me?"
Vicquemare hums. "It's working, isn't it?"
"Look at us, going back and forth between convincing each other that life isn't worthless. That's an improvement from how it used to be, right? No more making each other worse. I wonder what changed."
Harry yelps when Jean flicks him on the forehead. They both lean back into the couch, grinning, despite the exhaustion in their faces. "You fucking eradicated your own memory, superstar. That's what changed."
"But I gained some bits back."
"You're still sober, though," Jean mumbles. His voice unbearably soft. Kuuno almost gets back to bed then, not wanting to intrude on the moment any more than he already has.
"It's the kiddo as well," Harry suddenly adds. The moment becomes entirely quiet for a second, as though the apartment is holding its breath.
Vicquemare huffs with a smile. "That little foul-mouthed devil? Sure." He glances at the door to their tiny balcony and then pats his pant pockets for a cigarette. "He's got a good head on him, when he's not yelling our ears off. Bright lungs."
Harry's grinning from ear to ear, eyes like sickle moons. "I really love him."
"I know," Jean yawns.
"You really love him, too."
Kuuno freezes behind the door, nervous to make a floorboard creak and give himself away. Mouth dry and feeling the heat rush to his cheeks with thousand of tiny pinpricks.
The black-haired man gets up, cigarette retrieved and between his fingers. He snatches his lighter from the commode. "I do." Kuuno's heart is caught in his throat.
Harry, the idiot, stretches his arms, making grabbing motions with his hands and doing a bunch of kissy noises. "And we love you, Jean-jean! Chouchou! Don't leave me here!" You'd almost forget that a few minutes ago he was still wallowing in misery.
Jean kicks his shin. "Come with me then, it's not that cold outside. Clingy psychopath, that kid deserves better." They laugh.
Once they're on the balcony, Kuuno clicks his bedroom door shut at last.
>>>>>
They find out his dad's dead a month before Kuuno's fourteenth birthday.
He doesn't cry or flinch. He doesn't even get angry, like people expect him to. "Okay," he says, and goes back to doing his homework. Harry stands in the doorway like a sentinel.
"Do you... want to see him?"
Kuuno's grip on his pencil tightens. "See him? You mean take a look at the rotten body? You think Cuno's a fucking incestuous necrophiliac or something?"
Harry sighs. He never does in disappointment, usually in something more along the lines of grief. Or helplessness. "I thought it might help you. So you know for sure that he's gone." That he can never come back to hurt you ever again.
"You said the body's been identified. No need for the Cunmeister to drag his ass all the way to the morgue for nothing."
"That's fine," pighead replies. Calculated, careful. "If you change your mind, they won't cremate him before Friday."
Kuuno doesn't fucking care. He's never cared. Any sense of loss he's ever felt capable of feeling must've been used up on his mother. He attends his classes and training like nothing happened. Doesn't even take one day off. He helps Vicquemare at the stables on Wednesday. He doesn't kick anyone's teeth in at school, even when people whisper. He eats like normal, he showers like normal. He watches movies with Harry. He spellchecks the homework of one of Judit's kids in the motor carriage for her when she drives him home from the academy. He gets groceries. He reads a book.
Friday passes by, and then the weekend and then a whole week and then another. Kuuno lives. Everything's the same. Maybe even lighter. His father kicked the bucket and Kuuno doesn't have to suffer.
The only thing fucking with him is everyone else. The way they hover, touch him with kid gloves. Like they're bracing for him to explode. Or fall in on himself. Like he's either fragile or dangerous.
So, one afternoon, Kuuno seeks out the one person he knows will be straightforward with him. Honest. Normal. Delightfully distant.
He finds Kitsuragi in the garage, as expected. He's usually here around this time when he's off his shift. The man doesn't look up from his work, kneeling by one of the wheels and tinkering with something, but he's immediately aware of Kuuno's presence anyway.
"Harry's in the breakroom," he says. If Harry were here, he'd probably squeal at the usage of his first name.
Kuuno doesn't reply. He just sits down nearby on the floor, cross-legged, and unpacks the spicy chicken wrap Harry'd packed for him.
For a few minutes they do not talk. Then, the Lieutenant appears to be done with his newest torquedork endeavour. He stands up and wipes his glasses and then leans against the carriage as he looks at Kuuno. "Is something the matter?", he asks, clearly not excited at the prospect of having to spend his afternoon with a teenager.
"Cuno's old man died, but you know that," Kuuno drawls.
"Khm. Yes. My condolences."
The teen groans, pulling at his own hair at the back of his head. "Cut that shit, I just need someone to be normal with me."
Kim raises a brow. "So you came to me?"
"Yes, now don't make it weird or the Cuno's gonna pour coffee on the seats of that Kineema."
The Lieutenant visibly cringes and then crosses his hands behind his back. "Fine with me. Harry wanted me to gather intel on you anyway." He chuckles at Kuuno's confused expression. "He's asked us all to try and find out what you want for your birthday."
Kuuno bites the inside of his cheek and picks at the dirt under his nails. "I told him it's fine. He got me that record player last year."
Kim hums in acknowledgement. "Well yes, birthdays happen annually. Which means another year, another present. And more cake. Maybe this year we'll manage to get the Lieutenant-double-yefreitor to not eat so much he makes himself feel sick." Unlikely, but one can dream.
"I'm not sad," Kuuno says. "Or angry. Not even numb. But none of the pigs believe me. Teachers are looking real concerned as well. They think Cuno's gonna blow his brains out or something because his fucking daddy's gone and drunk himself into a coma so hard that his organs gave up once and for all."
Kim purses his lips, by no means taken aback by Kuuno's abrupt confessions. "People tend to worry in situations like this one."
"Well, they're worrying for nothing. Cuno's fine! It's like - it's like they think I'm a monster for not caring."
"I think," Kitsuragi replies, "they don't judge you. They just want you to be alright. Have you tried telling Harry exactly what you just told me?"
Kuuno blows a raspberry. "He's just gonna fuss over me either way."
Kim laughs – a sound light as a bell. He bites back on it. "I think that's just the downside of being close to Lieutenant Du Bois. He's... sentimental."
The teen just grumbles, gnawing at his food. His annoyance is ruining his appetite.
"Harry's just been afraid, Kuuno. You know how he gets. He wants you to be happy. When we got the call, he immediately consulted us on how to tell you."
"The call?"
The Lieutenant hesitates, like he has misstepped. "Yes, the call. An anonymous caller contacted us to inform us of your father's passing."
Kuuno's stomach does a flip. There's a ringing in his ear and he gets this feeling – almost like he has one of Harry's hunches. This feeling that something about this is utterly wrong.
"So we don't know who it was?" His throat is parched. The paper wrapper of his food crinkles between his fingers. Tinnitus and trembles.
Kitsuragi shakes his head. "No. And since there was nothing suspicious or extraordinary about Monsieur de Ruyter's death, there is no reason for us to investigate the caller's identity. It was likely a neighbour, or the cleaning staff."
"We'll never know," Kuuno breathes out. He squeezes the wrap in his hands a little too hard and some of the shredded lettuce and sauce drip down to his fingers.
They'll never know it was her. But Kuuno does. Kuuno does.
>>>>>
"I told you the sour cream ones are good."
"The Cuno's gotta give it to ya, they're fucking delicious."
They're sitting on the pavement together, in the alley behind the little convenience store. It's almost the end of Annette's lunch break. Kuuno didn't mean to stick around this long, but it's not like he's got anything else to do but wash the dishes at home and wait for his pigs to arrive. If he stays until 6pm, him and Annette could walk home together. It's been fun hiding behind the counter whilst Annette scans the groceries and doing stupid shit whenever the store is empty, which is 80% of the time. They've already collected a handful of impressions of annoying customers' voices.
"Did you know Yoana from class 3C is pregnant?"
"No shit," Kuuno retorts, his mouth full of chips. Annette doesn't seem to be squeamish about his eating habits. "Her belly's huge already and she spat her breakfast back up during P.E. two months ago."
"I feel bad for her," Annette mutters. "Becoming a mother this young isn't easy. And I've seen her mom, she doesn't seem like the supportive type. All uptight."
"Like yours?", Kuuno butts in before he can stop himself. Against his expectations, the girl only snorts with laughter.
"Exactly," she says. "And then the baby's gonna be miserable, too. It's just sad overall."
Kuuno frowns. "You don't know that." He bunches up the now empty chips bag between kneading palms. "Cuno's Ma was pretty young and 'twas fine."
Annette stares at him for a bit. He hates it when she does that. Something about her eyes is horrendously intense. "How old was she?", she asks and then splutters, "Sorry, you don't have to tell me."
Kuuno doesn't care. "17, or something close to it. But she was good. Raised me real well." He almost has to laugh at Annette's pondering expression. He knows exactly what she's thinking: If she raised you so well, why are you like this?
"Died when I was five, so that's that. Brain aneurysm. Things were already shit with Cuno's dad before that but he went real animal after."
"That sucks," Annette replies. It's not pity, but a simple understanding.
"He croaked two years ago. It's fine. Cuno's not a wimp." He tosses the balled up chips bag in a nearby trash container. Trick shot.
"Do you live alone now?"
Kuuno thinks for a moment. Then decides it's not worth it, trying to lie. "Cuno lives with Harry and his partner. From work. Everybody knows Cuno rolls with the RCM now. 'S why the Cuno's got training sometimes instead of school."
Annette's features melt with surprise. "Harry? Like the cop from that case we had? The one who took on the mercenaries?"
Kuuno cackles. "The fucking communist maniac of the 41st precinct himself."
The girl smiles to herself. "I wonder if he remembers me."
"He does," Kuuno tells her. "He's still got that weird hat you gave him as thanks."
Annette slaps his bicep. "It's not weird! He was like a real Dick Mullen."
"He's a dick alright."
She slaps his arm again and then hurries back into the store. "Lunch break's over, asshole," she laughs. He follows her back inside.