"I wonder who was with him last." The words echoed in my head like a bad dream I couldn't escape from.
No, I knew it was more than that.
I wandered in the bitter reminiscence of the bitter lanes of my head, little did I know there were no turns on the street I carved for myself; it was a one way street that slowly led me back to the same place over and over again.
I was merely a dog chasing its own tail, I thought the person I'd been watching was an entirely different person. He was a different person, I told myself, a different person than the one they were describing.
"What, am I supposed to say something?" They looked at me, just stared. "Listen, I don't know any more than you guys do."
That was my truth.
"I might be even more confused than you guys, actually."
They were too silent.
"Let me try and clear this all up—this city, just completely and utterly devoid of anything good, it's just…rotten. Everybody in this city is rotten, all these families and cops and politicians. It's all greed, violence, and fear. And you, you just show up here acting like you care…chasing some kid like it'll fix all the problems in this damned city, like that would make everything okay."
Their silence fed me on, it fueled me.
"All you guys want is somebody to pin the blame on. You chase him because it's easier than facing the city built on these little blocks you're too afraid to rearrange; little betrayals, small compromises. No, he is part of the chaos, but did he start it? But the fact is, everybody is involved in this."
All these rummaging thoughts scattered like little figments I desperately grabbed and reached towards, there's only so much you can grab when you're running on a curved path that never ends.
I paused, my hands clenched over the blanket. I was too afraid they would tremble if I attempted to move them under the blanket.
Ink-man spoke, his eyes narrowed to a close. "It's almost like you're defending him."
He tapped his pen on the pages of his notebook, my eyes widened. Not in surprise, but something else.
A slow, and deliberate sigh escaped his mouth. "You're saying he isn't the villain, that we don't see all the pieces on the board."
He said it like he knew, like he was the one who told the story so many times.
So spoke the man I could finally picture.
The lines under his eyes, the way his jaw tensed up, he was one of the same. Not the bad guys or the good guys, but he was the same as everybody else, even me.
"Nobody can." My voice trailed off. "Nobody does."
It was like I answered my own question, I was back at the beginning.
I remembered the way the lights flashed out in the night sky; the little dots that seemed so far away, yet easy to grasp, captured me in awe. The city was nothing like home, the black poles with lights that bloomed out of the glass jars left an imprint even my closed eyes couldn't forget.
Everywhere I stepped was a jumble of colours.
Neon, is what they called it. Those fluorescent bulbs they twisted into different shapes that could communicate more than just light, buzzing overhead like a halo that would guide me to a new haven.
Thick, loud, slurring voices merged into one, all these men who tucked away life and focused on the sweet taste of the present. They acted like they were all different from each other, but in reality, they all jumbled into a blinding white that warded away all the natural colours of the world.
My voice hesitates, not because I'm scared, but because even I know the words that come out of it are stupid.
"I just," I speak slowly, "I don't understand how chasing after him fixes anything."
"We aren't trying to fix anything."
The pen stopped clacking.
"We want this to end, and every road right now is leading straight back to him."
The smile found a way back to my face. It was like they thought me and him were peas in a pod, like I knew everything about him. I couldn't even see him, I could never even hear him despite his words being clear.
"Someone died before that night." Coffee perked up again, "You know why that changed everything, that's why we care, because he is the one we can still reach."
I was the only one who could lead them to him.
Ink-man smirked, not unkindly. "That's what your whole shtick was about, no?"
"Justice." The words slid out like a frame. "Didn't you and Kuroda work hard to put an end to evil."
The mention of Kuroda's name threw me off, I felt a tingling sensation on my face.
"His death is the only thing that matters right?" I laughed. "Hey, you remember back in '53, there was that case…it never came to a conclusion."
I'd mentioned it so many times, it was like talking about the weather.
"You're always asking what happened after this, what happened after that—things didn't change after Laurent died, things changed wayyy before that."
"But nobody cared. He wasn't even from here, why would anyone care?"
I wondered, if someone did, maybe none of this would have ever happened.
But I came to the quick realization that in a place like this, this cycle of suffering was bound to happen some way or another.