"The brake fluid seems fine. Look here, behind the caliper. The brake pads are those rectangular parts. Are they still thick? Then, it might be an adjustment issue. Press the lever, let's see if there's a difference."

Masao reached for his poor, dilapidated motorcycle. "It still feels a bit soft."

"We need to bleed the brake system. I need a hose and a bottle to remove the air. It'll take a while, but you'll see an improvement in how the brake feels."

Masao grumbled something as he went back into his house to get what was needed. After all these years, he still pretended not to understand anything about mechanics.

He kept every ailment of his motorcycle to himself just to mention it when he saw me on the brink of collapse, and then he dragged me along to be his slave in his driveway.

He thought that getting my fingers greasy with motor oil would disconnect my brain from any worries. And for the most part, it was true.

Masao reappeared on the patch of yellow grass with a hose and bottle under one armpit and an opened beer in hand. "Here you go. Have fun."

"You could also lend a hand."

Masao brought the bottle to his lips and took a sip. "Nah. I'd probably make it explode. You know how to do it better. And besides, if your hands are busy down there, you can't use them to hold your head and sigh like a lovesick maiden."

"It's you who keeps bringing up Benjamin. I never mentioned his name."

"And every time I see you sigh with your eyes to the heavens, I'm sure you're saying a prayer to the Virgin Mary."

No, I was cursing my own stupidity. I kept making the same mistake over and over, hoping for a different outcome each time. And yet, what a surprise... it always ended the same way: Ben with his heart in pieces and me not knowing how to put them back together.

"Why..." I couldn't help myself, I slumped my forehead against the frame and sighed. Why did I kiss him?

"Jack, I beg you, I implore you... find yourself a new guy who has... whatever it is that makes you lose your mind over Benjamin. What is it? A nice... uh... butt? The gill pouches where he holds his paralyzing venom? I don't know. As long as you forget about him. Take... uh... Bob, for example! Since we were fifteen, Bob has been drooling all over you. It was truly disgusting to watch, but I swear I'd rather see you with that 80% beer-and-weed creature than crawling back to your little pale shit."

"Don't call him that." There were a million appropriate insults for Ben, which I would have gladly endorsed, but people always preferred to hit where it hurt the most.

You didn't need to know him intimately to know that Ben had never truly accepted his albinism. He was ashamed of it, and after that bastard Franklin Durgo attacked him, he even hid it.

It hadn't always been like that. When I met him, he was struggling to accept himself. But on his twelfth birthday, he dressed in white.

"You look like a snowflake."

Enchanting.

After a long time, I got up from that kneeling position, stretching my arms and neck. "I need a beer."

Masao pointed to the door with the broken lock. "You know where the fridge is."

"How rude. I'm a guest."

He ignored that idiocy by pointing to the door again. I wasn't a guest in his house any more than he was in mine.

I entered the house, trying to ignore the eerie emptiness that pervaded every room. The boys had taken over that house two years ago. The previous owners had been arrested in the dead of night, and Masao wasn't the type to miss out on a golden opportunity like that just because I was temporarily stuck in juvie.

But after two years, the entire furniture of the house still consisted of a kitchen, two beach chairs, and a military cot.

We had made enough money by now. Masao could afford to buy a damn real bed, but he didn't.

And neither did I.

My theory was that growing up in that desolation, the squalor seeped into you like a parasite. You stopped feeling its presence, it was just how the world was made.

But there was also a strange sense of pride in all this. I can live like this, I always have and I don't need anything else. If you learn to accept squalor as a part of you, it will make you stronger.

I opened my beer and savored it as I watched Masao from the window, staring into nothing with a worried look.

That was his role in the gang: professional worrier.

I shook my head. If I had a dog anxious half of what Masao was, I would have put him down to spare him the agony.

His gaze suddenly snapped, something on the road was approaching rapidly.

I swallowed hard. Who were they? What did they want? I didn't have my gun with me, damn it...

A black car stopped two houses down, and from the driver's side emerged...

Ben?

Sunglasses, baseball cap... stupid blue hair. It was him. What was he doing at Masao's house? And how did he have that address?

I pressed myself against the wall beside the window. I was never sure how far he could see, but I wasn't willing to risk him noticing me even for a split second.

"I'm sure you'll find someone worthy of you at a big important university."

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

I managed to keep up a facade of dignity last time, but if I found him in front of me at that moment...

I trembled at the thought of what I might say. The kind of thing that makes you shudder in the years to come.

"Well, well, if it isn't my great friend Masao! How are you, dear?" Ben's voice came through clear and bright.

"How do you know where I live?"

I glanced with one eye beyond the window. Masao stood with crossed arms between Ben and the front door.

"Don't worry about the details. I needed to talk to you privately, and here I am. I swear I won't steal too much of your precious time."

"It's not the time that's the problem. It's that your presence makes me sick," Masao replied with his usual charm.

"Ah. Listen, I'm afraid we'll have to shorten the part where we insult each other. You despise me because I slept with your best friend, and I despise you because, well..." Ben made a vague gesture towards Masao, as if his entire existence was explanation enough for that contempt. "But that's not relevant right now. Right now, you and I could even call each other allies."

"Oh yeah? And how?"

"Well, we both would prefer not to see Casper lying in an alley with a bullet in his head. Right?"

Masao looked towards me. He knew I was there hidden, listening. There was all the concern he was capable of in that single look.

"So?"

"So this is exactly what happened to the last person who annoyed Jodi. Just the other day. A guy named Charlie Stan."

Masao didn't flinch. We knew about Charlie. By now, everyone knew. But Ben shouldn't have been part of that everyone.

I was still surprised by his ability to stick his nose in other people's business.

"I know you don't trust me, Masy, you always think I have some shady motives, but after all these years, you must have learned that at least in this, we're on the same side. I don't want him harmed. And I may not have put all the pieces together yet, but I know Casper has gotten himself into serious trouble this time."

I found myself slumped on the floor, pressing the palms to my eyes until I saw white beneath the lids.

I had two thoughts at the opposite extremes of the same anger.

I told you to let go of this story.

If you still care enough about me to do all this, then why...? Why do you keep pushing me away?

"Okay, let's admit that Casper is neck-deep in shit. What could you possibly do about it, blind boy?"

I leaned forward again to see Ben's twisted smirk at being called that. But Ben's face was relaxed. He took a step forward, seeming excited to have found an opening.

"I can detect danger before it happens. I can avoid it. I know there's a traitor in your gang, someone willing to sell you out to Jodi for their gain, and who attacked me to silence the investigations. I know this person had to be present at the gathering, and I know it wasn't you. Because as much as I hate your face, I know you'd sooner bite your own arm off than betray Casper. That leaves five suspects: Cole, Peter, Nathan, Bob, and Max. One person among them was in front of Casper's house on January 14th at one in the morning. They left a letter threatening to reveal to Jodi the location where the stuff is hidden unless Casper agrees to share the profits. Now. Between you and me, Masy. Now that you know I just want to save him from his own stupidity, tell me the truth: Has Cas really sunk so low as to start dealing drugs? After what that shit did to his mother?"

Fucking moralist.

In an instant, I saw the same exact thought cross Masao's face. His lips drew tight, his crossed arms squeezed his chest, and I knew that if I hadn't been there to watch, Masao would have put hands on Ben.

"It must be so easy for you to come here, tell everyone how they should live their lives, when from your mansion in Upper Elm you've never had a single real problem in your life."

Things had the power to escalate quickly. I was ready to intervene; there were only a few meters between me and the door.

There was a chilling silence, the same that envelops everything moments before a shootout. Someone would fire first, and I'd bet my underwear that someone would be...

"I'm sorry." The universe jolted when those two words left Ben's lips. "I'm just... bitter. And scared."

Even Masao didn't know how to react. The tension in his shoulders eased. "I don't know what you want from me, Nicholson."

"I need to know what you guys did the night between the thirteenth and the fourteenth. Who among the Coyotes was present, and who could have slipped away around one to leave that letter."

Masao's gaze darted towards me. But only for a moment.

"It's impossible that the letter was left at one," Masao replied. "Whoever tipped off Jodi did it much earlier."

What the fuck are you doing?