City of Fire and Ink

It's not my fault that Dragons find you naturaly unpalatable

The next few days, I laid low. I didn't contact the Lourdes or my new superior, a man named Ha-Kun. All I knew about Ha-Kun was that he was a lawyer, he had a husband and two kids, and he wouldn't tolerate disrespect from anyone. We were all assigned under Ha-Kun, so that mean that Maisie Demon face wouldn't be able to pull any shit either. At least I hoped. Something told me she was gonna do what she felt like doing regardless of what any of us thought about it. I would have respected the hell out of that, except she tried to kill me so it was more annoying then cool.

My boss commented on my tattoo as soon as I walked into work, pulling me into his office for a "chat." You'd think I was being called into the principal's office with all the looks that I got.

"So Seojun. I noticed you're now Lourdes affiliated."

"Yes. Just this weekend."

"Are you struggling financially? Because if so, you should have spoken up before resorting to such drastic measures."

Technically, I was struggling financially but not in the way he thought. "No. I joined for personal reasons."

"Very well then. Be sure to keep that outside of your work here." His words were just a formality. Everyone knew that when gangs were involved, all bets were off. But I nodded and said of course, working at Kazembe was my top priority and that was it.

My coworkers were fascinated by the tattoo too. Kazembe wasn't employing a high number of gangsters at the moment, so I was currently the newest commodity. I did however, catch the attention of a woman working across the floor from me. We hadn't talked before, but she'd been working with Kazembe for a while. She saw my tattoo and gave me a knowing look. I didn't even know her name, but I would be willing to bet money that she was a gangster too.

"When did you get in?" Marjan Soltani examined my tattoo. We had been working together for years. My first day at Kazembe, I had spilled coffee all over them because I wasn't looking where I was going. Those were the days when I drank coffee. Bleh.

Instead of yelling at me, Marjan changed their shirt and offered to by me a drink after work, considering as I had no friends. We quickly bonded and had been friends ever since.

"I got in during the Lunar Ball."

"How did they manage that? Did they sneak you in through a back door?"

"No, I actually got an invitation."

"And you didn't tell me because?" They were half outraged, half excited.

"These are the same people who killed my grandpa."

"Oh." They grew quiet. "These are the people who Seok took the money from then you refused to give it back and. . ."

"The people that tried to kill Inez? Yeah."

"Interesting strategy." Marjan played with the charm bracelet around their wrist. For their birthday last year, their partners had gotten Marjan the bracelet with a charm or two from each of them. It was adorably romantic and Marjan wore it every day.

"What are the poppies for?" They gently touched the still healing design. "Because it softens up the whole look. Don't get me wrong, I like it. But it's not what I would have picked if I wanted to look scary."

They made a good point. The poppies didn't exactly scream I'm a gangster, fear me.

"I got one for each person that I'm doing this for. Harabeoji Seok, Halmeoni Hazel, Appa, Omma, Kayla, and Inez." There was another reason why I chose the poppy, that hopefully would help Omma realize that I was doing this for her.