Favourite Crime

Cada

Herou put shot glasses after show glasses of beer down beside us. "Will you please stop talking about the job and drink."

Haoun grabbed his shot glass and drank from it. Then he took mine and drank from it and asked for more from the bartender.

I raised an eyebrow at him.

"You hate beer." He said.

"I was more focused on your drinking speed." Though he was right. I hated beer. And now all I could think of was this one random detail he remembered about me.

"If things go wrong, this could be our last free night." He said. "I'm not going to spend it worrying about tomorrow."

I nodded and asked the bartender for gin.

Everyone slept on the roof of the taller building beside the bar. I couldn't sleep, of course. Not when the next day held a return to what I had escaped from so desperately.

I hadn't let myself feel the pain of what had happened to me. Right now, it tugged at me.

A decade, lost. My childhood, gone.

Many times I had seen teenagers on the streets of Hourmurj. Their laughter, their camaraderie, their youth. It all came to me.

It had been taken from me. And I wasn't the only one. It had been taken from all the children of Koewrim. Lives had been stolen from all of the people that had lived there.

I saw Haoun sit up. He was the furthest to the edge.

I too got up, not wanting to continue feeling pity for myself when I didn't deserve it. I joined him near the edge, an arm's length away from him.

"I punished the people who burnt down our village." He said.

I looked at him.

"I tracked Fister down. I tracked down his whole team. The Marshall was old and weak, having lost one of his legs. I shot him in the other one. Then I shot him in his arms." He continued. "I made sure the bloody rascal spent his last years completely dependent on the people around him to do the mildest of tasks."

I stayed quiet.

"The rest of his team suffered a similar fate."

I closed my eyes, my head turned up as my chest burning by this knowledge.

"All throughout that time when our town was being destroyed, I was waiting for you. Looking for you. Expecting for you to come and protect me." He confessed. "The way you had protected me my entire childhood."

"Haoun-"

"As a child, I never realised your life didn't hold only me. And I could never have imagined that you were facing imprisonment for being more than just a human. If I had, perhaps I could have returned the favour."

It was a new way to put it. More than a human.

All this time, I considered myself less than a human because of what I was, and here he was calling me more than a human.

I couldn't breathe. In that moment, I hated myself for not remembering him past that image of him being terrified of me. Like everyone else was when they saw me like that.

I opened my eyes and looked at him. He was looking down at the ground. "And now, you can protect your own self so well that even I can't get close to you." I said.

He glared at the ground.

Softly, I asked, "Why can't anyone touch you?"

He looked at me.

"I'm not a fool. I may have spent my life in a case, and I may not remember anything, but I can see you're terrified of being touched. The constant gloves, the space you leave between yourself and others. You flinched when you were being put down. You can't even sleep in front of us." I said. "Why can't you touch people? Why can't I touch you?"

"Why would you want to?" He asked, looking away again, his jaw clenched as he pulled his barriers back up.

Because I care for you. Because I want to hold your hand. Because thinking about how when I drink from your glass, I'm technically kissing you, only served to make me want you more.

I didn't say any of that, because I myself didn't know where it had come from. Such thoughts had never been so loud in me and I hadn't expected them to attack me right now.

"Is this life, so distanced from everyone, enough for you, Haoun?" I asked, instead.

He didn't reply for a moment. "Once I get my burgen, it will be."

It was done. His moment of honesty was over. He was back to being the selfish and arrogant gambling house owner and thief.