Knights of the Grey City

Chapter 6 - STUDY

I went to work the next day. My shift passed like a dream, as if everything around me wasn't real, and the work day was over almost before I knew it. It was time to head back home. I couldn't help but smirk a little at the irony—all it took to get through a day at work was to get absorbed into another dimension once in a while.

I found myself hesitating at the door. As far as I knew, the Grey City couldn't nab me if I never left the plant. Or if I went home and never left again. Maybe that would have been the safest solution, but if I stayed indoors (and didn't get that paycheque) I soon wouldn't have doors to stay inside.

Checking my phone to waste time before going home, I found I'd received a few texts from Huang. He'd given me his address and asked if I wanted to stop by and exchange notes.

I frowned and texted back. Think it's safe to go wandering around the city?

After a few minutes, I got a reply: safe as it ever is. Wincing, I got myself together and pushed the door open into the cold evening.

Well, no extra-dimensional bullcrap thus far. I can take the subway and get there in like half an hour? That ok?

Yeah, he replied. I pulled down my hood and set off.

Huang lived in an apartment not too far from College Street, blessedly close to a subway station. I found his number in the directory and stepped into a posh little lobby when he buzzed me in.

His parents probably paying for it, I decided, or Huang was really managing to make the most of his student loans. When I finally got up to the fifth floor and located Huang's door, he opened it pretty much as soon as I knocked, glancing up from his phone.

I had a moment of disconnection when I didn't recognize the guy standing in the door of his apartment, wearing an old grey hoodie with his long hair tied in a bun. It was Huang, all right, but it was still so strange to see him outside the backdrop of the Grey City.

He raised his eyebrows. "What?"

You don't look much like a dragon. "Nothing," I said. "It's cold."

"Well, come in," he said, stepping away. "Apartment's empty for now, my girlfriend shouldn't be back for a while."

I stepped inside a neat, white-walled apartment, sparsely furnished like student apartments tend to be. It seemed more spacious than my place, but that could have just been the lack of clutter. There were nice little accents here and there: a few potted plants, hanging art, and some amateurish ceramics.

"Coffee?" Huang asked, drifting past me.

"Kinda late for coffee, don't you think?" I asked. I stuffed my hands in my pockets, starting to feel a little awkward. There were some shoes neatly piled on a mat by the door so I kicked my snowy boots off.

"Well, I'm going to need it, don't know about you," Huang said in a monotone, glancing back at me. He looked tired as hell.

"Sure, why not," I sighed, feeling pretty exhausted myself. I followed Huang into his kitchen, a cramped space arranged tightly around a circular table. Some textbooks and notes were piled up on one side of the table, which Huang pushed aside as I approached.

I tentatively sat down while Huang moved around the kitchen, prepping coffee. "So," I said, "I guess we have a lot to talk about?"

"Kind of," Huang agreed, scooping grinds into the machine. "But listen, I have something to say first."

"What?"

He turned around and pinned me with a look. "I get you don't trust me very much, but if we want to figure out what's going on, we're going to have to be honest with each other. Okay?"