The rumbles of thunder called a warning before brilliant plasma jumped with shattering crack. 

 

Jinyu narrowed his eyes against the lightning strike, not far away enough from his bus stop for comfort. The storm drove hard down the sky, spiking against his cheek as he leaned up against the towering column of the bank’s overhanging entrance. If the bus didn’t come in twenty minutes, he was going to be soaked. The bus stop only provided a tiny little shelter, of which were filled with people already, shoved in, waiting anxiously for the bus. If Jinyu had learned anything, it was to never let himself be crowded up with strangers, let alone in a new town. With his suitcase still by his side, he was a walking robbery magnet.

 

That was, if they were stupid.

 

Jinyu drummed his fingers on the handle of his rolled suitcase, wondering for the third time today if he had brought along the keys to his new, tiny apartment that he had grabbed from the landlord. He slid a hand through his pockets as discreetly as possible to make sure it was exactly where he had left it, two hours ago. He could lose his suitcase, but not the key, since the landlord would not have a replacement. Luckily for him, he had virtually no physical belongings to his name; filling up that apartment wouldn’t be a problem in the long run. 

 

The rain splattered on harder, much to the grief of Jinyu’s cold fingers. The tips of his fingers were already long red, coming down from his old stay at the village adjacent to this city, a fifty minute bus ride along. Now, he couldn’t feel his extremities. His boots might have been made of leather and waterproof, but not coldproof. 

 

A scam, if you ask him. 

 

He wanted to turn back the time to three weeks ago, where he had yet to sign the lease contract and slap himself until he came to his senses. The city was a different monster than the lazy move of a village town. He hadn’t lived in a city for a year- everything was already too loud, ringing in his ears. 

 

The arrival of the bus didn’t make it better, the screech of unoiled brakes scratching through the fogging annoyance and distress. Jinyu almost didn’t get on that bus out of pettiness, but it was the last bus that would be going to his neighborhood, and he wasn’t inclined to spend his money and time for a taxi to take him home. Not right now, not in the rain, where taxis would be sparingly running. No one wanted to work during a storm, Jinyu sure didn’t. 

 

He settled into a spot near the front, his suitcase between his legs, next to the aisle so he wouldn’t be stuck between the window and another body. Even the constant bumping of the next few stops of people coming in and out were better than being trapped in. Jinyu has scanned the faces of everyone that passed by him, a habit that burned in his mind more than just muscle memory. 

 

When the bus halted to a stop, two minutes from his neighborhood, Jinyu followed two other people out of the bus and into the rain, tugging the hood of his windbreaker over his head once more. The private complex only held two buildings of apartments, both skyscrapers climbing for the skies. His apartment was on the first floor, where no one could throw him off a balcony and call it an accident. 

 

The apartment itself was clean, sparingly furnished from three days before, when Jinyu had moved whatever salvageable furniture from the village to the city. A tall, L-shaped oak wood shelf dominated the corner of the living room, looking like it stretched into the void beyond the arching walls of the entrance hall. The table near it, five years old but looked freshly out of the manufacturing plant after some polish and wax, was the new centerpiece of the living and dining room combination. He would have to get rid of it one day, but it hadn’t collapsed on him. Not yet.

 

The walls were bare of any more decor, which wasn’t a problem for the current Jinyu. He was more interested in putting his suitcase in his new bedroom and hoping his groceries, stored in the fridge from two days ago, had failed to rot. 

 

It was peaceful for the moment he arrived, the storm grumbling outside without any sympathies to people still rushing home from their 9 to 5 jobs, the warm white light the of the lights in his new kitchen as he pulled out a ramen packet from the pantry, eggs, raw bacon, bok choy from the fridge. It was quiet until he was plating his bowl of noodles and stirring fish sauce into the soup base- when of which did a vibrating buzz come from his jean pocket. He pulled it out. It was Weng Qinlei. 

 

“Hello Senior Weng,” Jinyu greeted politely, with a face that didn’t match his tone. He pulled himself a chair from the kitchen’s island to pretend he cared about Weng Qinlei’s rambling for the next ten minutes. If his phone plan hadn’t had a comparably cheap limitless text and call, he wouldn’t have sucked up to him at all, let alone politely indulge him for the last three years of his precious life. He was only twenty-one; he wasn’t planning on keeping up appearances for the rest of his life.

 

“Hey Jinyu,” Jinyu’s mouth twitched. “How’s the new apartment? You know, I’ve got an apartment in a city near where you are now, and…” Jinyu tuned his monologue out to go fish his laptop out of his suitcase. He turned back on attention mode fifteen minutes into the phone call, when he had his files opened up in front of him and syncing up. “By the way, did you hear that someone figured out where ‘The Artist’ is residing? No one else in the association is aware of The Artist’s whereabouts though. I bet you a thousand that it’s a newbie trying to get a claim to fame early on.” 

 

The Artist, the newest media favorite serial killer, was the Bounty Hunter Organized Association (BHOA)’s newest number one killer on the run. Partly for the gruesome murders, partly for the media attention. The amount of leads the BHOA had readily available was paltry, barely anything to get a head start. It would be a wonder if the news of someone cracking open the case of The Artist’s identity did not spread through the association like wildfire. 

 

For a bounty hunter who had been so for more than twenty years and without any notorious criminal name under his belt in a world overrun with them, Wen Qinlei was rather free with his criticism. Jinyu mumbled, “Sure does sound like it,” with the most nonchalant, detached voice he could muster. Which, as it turned out, like all the rest of the times, pleased Qinlei. 

 

“Say, Jinyu, how’s that hunt for that drug lord going? Need any help? I probably know a guy or two,” Qinlei asked, a disguise for his boasting. Jinyu wanted to laugh. Did Qinlei even look at the BHOA forums anymore? He had been locked up for a month. Even if he wasn’t yet, Qinlei’s “guys” would surely be as criminal as any other man he’d catch. 

 

“Thank you Senior, but I’ve caught the drug lord,” Jinyu replied, then added, because he was feeling petty, “He’s been locked up and awaiting trial for a month now.” There was a long, embarrassed silence. 

 

“Oh well-”

 

Jinyu interrupted him before he could roll out other avenues of conversation, tired of this charade, “If Senior Wei has nothing else, I will get off the phone now. The supervisor wants to talk in a few minutes,” an outrageous lie. Jinyu had not talked to his supervisor in a year. He was dead, and Jinyu wasn't good enough of a person to grieve for him. He simply reported directly to his late supervisor’s late higher ups until they assigned him a new one. They said their due goodbyes, and Jinyu sighed a breath of relief, turned his phone face down on the quartz surface of the kitchen to eat in relative silence. 

 

It was only 6:30 PM. Jinyu left his dishes to wait and went to his bedroom to unpack. His laptop was a dent in his clothes, but as he tossed the neatly folded clothes onto his bed, revealing another backpack underneath. 

 

Seven different types of daggers, a zipped up pack of microphone bugs, a change of clothes, protective gloves, a prepaid phone, two handguns, bullets, three sets of handcuffs and a rope. Other than that, there was also his laptop, which was now sitting in his kitchen counter. They were tools of his trade, as a bounty hunter in a vicious world where crime was high. 

 

Jinyu polished his knives once again, then placed them aside and dug out a small pocket out of the bottom. The photo slipped out by itself, revealing two little boys, standing side by side. One held a baseball bat stuck with nails, the other, a kitchen knife. That day, it had taken all of the orphanage mother’s pleading and coaxing for them to put down the weapons. Jinyu had only put the kitchen knife down after every adult in the vicinity put their hands up in the air and stood a 100 feet away from them. Ketian, the other boy in the photo, had dragged along his baseball bat to the orphanage, scowling at the orphanage mother every time she had approached them.

 

He’d been right to do that, to only the Social Service worker’s surprise.

 

Jinyu had been eight, Ketian had been ten. It had been them against the world, because the foster system had failed them one too many times to trust anyone again.

 

“And now it is me against you,” Jinyu muttered. He put the photo away and closed the suitcase.

Jinyu went out in the morning, after last night’s storm had moved on to torment other cities in the region, the sweet scent of the plundered ozone still lingering in the air. He was craving something to punch, had spotted a boxing studio in the last few weeks he was here in the city, scouting for an apartment. It was small, but clean with a man who had long retired from the professional scene overseeing its operation. 

 

“Ah,” As Jinyu locked his own door behind him, the door of the apartment right across from Jinyu’s new place- apartment 207. A man stepped out of the painted white door, the bronze of the doorknob worn away from use, revealing the dull inside of the knob. The person in question took a momentary step back into the house as he met Jinyu’s eyes. 

 

There was a strike of familiarity. Jinyu was seeing a manipulated image of someone he knew, like time had taken memories from him and plopped them right back in front of him again, in a taller, time-touched form. His hair was still dark brown, his skin a little tanner. But the cold glitter in the dark, almost purple, eyes that he’d become used to didn’t exist as Jinyu stared back into the eyes of a man who looked so much like Hakoyama Ketian that it scorched his lungs. 

 

It clicked into place when the other man spoke, “Weixie?” 

 

“Ketian,” the name came out steadier than he thought it would, with none of the pretty curiosity of Ketian’s unspoken questions. “I'm going by Jinyu now.”

 

“Do you? Surprise, surprise,” Ketian closed the door as he joined Jinyu outside. a smile spread quickly across his mouth. “A small world.”

 

“A bit too small,” Jinyu replied as he watched Ketian slide a nasty looking knife back into its sheath. His hand had flown to his pocket when he caught Jinyu’s eye, where the hilt of the now hidden knife resided. It seemed that some habits had yet to die. Jinyu felt the same about his habits, he still had a knife strapped to the inside of his jacket. He didn’t use it usually, because his fists were enough to dissuade anyone from messing with him further but regardless, it made him feel secure, especially in a new city.

 

Not with Ketian though; with Ketian, no amount of knives would ever be enough. Jinyu could fight him to the death, hide continents away and Ketian would find his way to his side, a juxtaposition of Jinyu’s deepest fears and his greatest safety net in one. 

 

Ketian shrugged lightly without taking his words to heart, “Bold words from someone who used to be so attached to me.” Jinyu was suddenly fourteen again, standing in the doorway of the orphanage, looking at his new parents. He was holding onto Ketian’s hand, nails digging hard enough into the back of his hand to bleed. The smiles of the two adults stiffened when Jinyu made no move to come closer to them, standing away from them in silent opposition. 

 

Jinyu didn’t remember how, but he ended up at their home anyway, the skin of Ketian’s hand under his nail beds and the sink of stone in his chest. He had been left behind. 

 

“That was before,” Jinyu’s voice had become soft. “A lot has happened since.”

 

Ketian’s eyes scoured his face, a flash of hard light that Jinyu was so familiar with that immediately dissolved into nothing, “Mn. When did you move in?” Leave it to him to change the subject without grace or care. 

 

“Last night,” Jinyu replied. “The lady said that my neighbor would prefer the complex stayed quiet. It turned out to be you.”

 

A crass smile lifted Ketian’s face. He rocked back on his heels, leaned against the wall, “Obviously. There’s only two others in these four floors, the rest of the residents live on the higher floors.” Jinyu wondered if Ketian’s never ending struggles was the reason for the lack of people in this complex. The rent was obviously lower than every other one in the street, but the first time he had toured the floor, it was exceedingly quiet. Too quiet for an apartment in one of the busiest cities in China. 

 

“Oh,” was all he said to sum up his thoughts. “Okay.” 

 

“You’re still the same,” Ketian laughed, but it didn’t reach his eyes. 

 

“Not really.”

 

It was a poor refute, half-hearted at best. 

 

“Believe what you want,” Ketian’s unfriendly smile was both a refuge and a weapon. “In my eyes, you will always be the same person, whatever your name is.”

 

Part of Jinyu wanted to retort, argue his words. The rest of him said nothing. Maybe it was true enough, Ketian’s perceptions of people had undoubtedly changed from his sixteen year old days, but they would remain the same at his twisted base: pessimistic and paranoid. 

 

“I know,” Jinyu replied, calm. Ketian’s grin became larger, if possible. Jinyu would hold on to this little thread, that out of everything, Ketian’s opinions of him would survive anything, to remain unchanged, unwarped.

 

Something pure, as pure as they could be.