After the Dragons Page 5

  “Mom.”

  “You can choose to not listen to me, but you can’t stop me from worrying, Eli. That’s my right as your mother.”

  “You don’t need to worry about this, though. I swear, Mom, I’m fine. Honestly.”

  His mother frowns, lips pursed and unhappy, but she lets it go.

  “Do you need anything?” she asks. “If you need more money for food or souvenirs or anything from home, we can always transfer money into your account … it might take a while, but we can send it over if you need it.”

  “I’m fine,” he says, smiling as reassuringly as he can. “Thanks for offering though.”

  “Take care of yourself, baobei,” she says, and then she’s gone too.

  Despite how frequently he visits Mr. Lin’s store, it’s a few weeks after he starts working with Kai that Eli attends another dragon fight.

  It is, in the end, less a deliberate moral choice than one of convenience — for all that Eli finds the sport unpleasant, he isn’t Kai, ready to strike some grand ethical stance at the slightest injustice. In college, his friends had teased him about being secretly middle-aged, and though he’d protested, Eli knows that it’s at least partially true; he’s never liked parties or festivals, the constellations of noise and lights and drunken cheer exhausting after a few minutes. The fights Mr. Lin referees are hardly on the scale of the music festivals and frat parties Eli’s housemates had dragged him to, but it’s the same principle: too many people, too much noise, not enough space to think. But Dr. Wang had invited him and he’d vowed to make the best of it. Nursing a beer on the outskirts of the ring, watching men cheer on their favorites, Eli wonders, once again, what exactly is the appeal of these fights.

  “You look like you have a question,” Dr. Wang says.

  Eli deliberates over his words, then settles on honesty. “I don’t understand why we’re here again.”

  “Because it’s a learning opportunity,” Dr. Wang says. “Also, if I’m going to let a stranger into my laboratory to rummage through my equipment, I’d prefer to know a little about them first.” Her tone is light, but Eli can’t help but wince at the unspoken implications. For all her friendliness, Dr. Wang is still his PI, letting Kai help as a favor to Eli.

  “Besides,” Dr. Wang says, one shoulder rising in a shrug, “it’s nice to get out of the lab sometimes, isn’t it? Engage with people once in a while, see where all the work you do is actually going. There’s value to studying phenomena directly, seeing the way principles actually work in the world instead of under controlled and artificial conditions. A learning experience, like I said. The process is messier, yes, but sometimes science is like that. Stumbling in the dark until we reach something of value. And when we do, who are we to complain about the discovery not being what we expected?”

  She smiles at Eli, earnest and friendly, and in the face of that expression, Eli cannot find it in himself to respond. He remembers feeling that way about research once, and he cannot imagine how Dr. Wang, with all her years of experience, has managed to maintain it.

  “Ah, Tong, just in time,” Dr. Wang says, smiling as Mr. Lin walks over with an unlit cigarette. “That man over there, with the green panlong? I had a few questions about its foreclaws, the extra dewclaw there, and well, he doesn’t seem to know much. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions —”

  The animation on Dr. Wang’s face as she turns to Mr. Lin tells Eli that he’s on his own for the next few hours. There’s nothing to do, then, but find Kai where he is perched on a stool with a sketchpad balanced on his knees.

  “Hi,” Kai says, glancing up. “I thought I saw your professor around.”

  “You don’t sound particularly happy about it.”

  “I’m not,” Kai says, turning back to his drawing. “She’s nosy and tactless and asks a thousand questions no one cares about or could even answer, and she doesn’t seem capable of talking to people under fifty like they aren’t middle schoolers.” He frowns, turning his pencil on the side and shading upwards in slow, steady strokes.

  “That’s a fairly accurate description,” Eli says, “if not exactly charitable.” He leans in for a closer look at the paper. “What are you working on?”

  In response, Kai tilts his sketchbook toward him. It’s a dragon — Cixi, Eli guesses from the long lines of wings and thin limbs, though it could plausibly be another feilong. The expression of distant superiority, however, is pure Cixi, the likeness striking even with the sketch in black-and-white and only half-finished. Eli can see the thrumming energy in the creature’s folded wings, the gloss of its scales.

  “That’s very good.”

  “Says the one who’s never drawn before.”

  “What? Does that mean I can’t have an opinion?”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  “I’ve drawn before,” Eli protests. “Not in a formal context — but I have artsy friends, I’ve been to museums. I like to think I know a bit about the process. I still think it’s good.”

  Kai makes a noncommittal noise, but otherwise lets the point stand.

  Compared to the first fight, there are only a smattering of people this time. Kai had told Eli that attendance dies down after the opening fights, with fans waiting to see which dragons pull ahead in wins. Eli guesses that tonight’s attendees are diehards and novice trainers looking to pick up hands-on insight; at a glance, Eli sees several notebooks and at least one laptop opened to a spreadsheet. Without the need to please a raucous crowd, individual fights are shorter, dragons pinning or knocking their opponents out of bounds with swift, economical moves. In front of a shuttered storefront, Dr. Wang gestures wildly with her hands, no doubt expostulating on some advanced scientific theory as Mr. Lin watches. It’s difficult to tell from this distance, but Eli thinks Mr. Lin is smiling.

  “It’s a slow night,” he says, turning to Kai. “Do you want to go somewhere else for a while?”

  “Please,” Kai says, already standing up.

  When Eli takes in his surroundings, they’re far enough from the shop that he knows he wouldn’t be able to pick his way back by himself. But they’re close enough that he doesn’t doubt Kai will be able to. In any case, Kai is relaxed and assured, leading them — along with Cixi and a small dragon he’d fetched from the shop — through the narrow streets. He punches in the key code for the gated apartment complex with practiced ease.

  Eli passes through the gate as Kai pacifies the dragon on his right shoulder. Tianlong instead of feilong, the dragon is smaller than Cixi and far less self-assured. Perched on Kai’s forearm, Cixi gives an impatient trill, obviously unimpressed with her companion’s skittishness.

  “Do you live here?” Eli asks, glancing around. The presence of a gate is already unexpected, and the buildings inside the compound are tall and white-washed, clean in a way that suggests either constant maintenance or newness. Small patches of vegetation line the space between buildings, impressively green despite the current weather. It’s certainly fancier than any place he would expect a college student to live.

  “No,” Kai says, holding tight to the leather straps around Cixi’s legs as he closes the door behind them. “Barely anyone lives here — they finished construction a year ago, but since then, no one’s really moved in. They’re trying to create a new luxury housing and hotel district, but the rest of the neighborhood’s preventing that from happening. Even if the buildings are nice, most rich people would rather move to the suburbs than live someplace so ‘unsafe.’ It’s a local joke, all these deserted high-rise buildings with their fancy car garages in an area where no one owns a car.”

  “How did you know the code, then?”

  “Observation,” Kai says, turning back and giving him a smile. And for an instant, his smile is so self-satisfied that he could be any other college student, basking in the victory of breaking the rules.

  On Kai’s arm, Cixi strains upwards as they walk, trying to escape. But Kai keeps a tight hold on her jesses. On his shoulder, the othe
r dragon — Qinglu, brown-red and smaller — watches her, blinking in the draconic equivalent of wide-eyed gawking.

  Kai stops in an expanse of sparse half-dried grass. The remnants of a playground litter the space — a set of swings bordered by a red seesaw and two cartoon characters on spring-loaded mounts — but for the most part, the area is empty save for the occasional sapling. How much would this space have cost, considering how crowded the rest of the city is? Eli tries not to think about it.

  Cixi cheeps, tugging again on her jesses. Kai rolls his eyes, then takes a roll of string out of his bag.

  “There,” he says, tying the string to one leg and letting her go, a streak of green-blue blurring into the sky. “I swear, if she manages to tangle herself up, I might just leave her there.”

  “You’re not worried about her?” Eli asks, pointing at Qinglu.

  “Qinglu’s bribable,” Kai says, scratching a hand over the dragon’s shoulders. “She’s also skittish about being in the city at all, so I’m more concerned about getting her to leave than to return. Not that it isn’t understandable,” he says, patting Qinglu’s side. “Great big city, a lot to see for such a small dragon, isn’t it?”

  Qinglu hums, leaning into Kai’s touch. Eli reaches one hand over, lets Qinglu sniff it briefly before scratching beneath her chin.

  Such uninterrupted tranquility is an oddity, with nightclubs and bars undoubtedly full a few districts away. But surrounded by high-rises in the middle of an empty park within a gated community, it’s easy to forget that. The rest of Beijing, at least temporarily, seems to fade away.

  They walk the grounds for a while, neither saying anything. No one else enters the park, no harried manager comes out to scold them for trespassing. The buildings are tall and white and empty, the few lighted windows noticeable and small against the dark. It is almost eerie, this stillness, but somehow, walking with Kai, Eli isn’t bothered.

  Above them, Cixi is a child’s drawing of a dragon as she flits in and out of low cloud cover. Kai frowns, seeing her, and tugs on the string; Cixi glances down, and blithely continues ignoring him. Kai rolls his eyes, then tugs again, and this time Cixi pulls back, veering hard off in one direction as if to prove she can. “An actual demon,” Kai sighs, but loosens his grip on the string, letting it extend to its full length.

  “You aren’t worried about the string breaking?”

  “I’ve done this before,” Kai says. “None of the other dragons have escaped. Besides,” he says, shrugging as he steps up onto the curb, balancing on the edge, “if she’s really that set on escaping, she can go. Pain in the ass, honestly. Practically not even worth keeping, even if some rich asshole eventually ends up buying her.”

  As if hearing them, Cixi veers sharply to one side, jerking the line nearly out of Kai’s hands.

  It’s only a moment — one flicker of a second as Kai stumbles forward, barely a few inches before he catches himself. But before he can help himself, Eli steps toward him, one hand extended forward in aid.

  “Are you —”

  “I’m fine,” Kai says, straightening to look levelly at him. “You can stop looking at me like I’m about to start convulsing.”

  “Have I been making you feel that way?”

  “Occasionally, yes. Not all that time,” Kai says, jumping back onto the sidewalk. “Which is a mercy. But more often than I’d like. I wasn’t exaggerating. I’m not here for your pity.”

  “I didn’t —”

  “You didn’t mean to make me uncomfortable. I know.” Kai turns. Outlined by the streetlights behind them, his eyes gleam as they meet Eli’s. “But you still feel sorry for me.”

  “I don’t feel sorry for you,” Eli says. “I want to help you.”

  “Same thing, isn’t it?”

  Cixi circles down, chittering her displeasure as she lands on Kai’s shoulder. She bumps her head against his cheek, gesture less affectionate than imperious.

  “Brat,” Kai says, but he gives in, one hand reaching under her chin to scratch her. Cixi leans into Kai’s touch, luxuriating in the attention, and then pointedly nips at the creance line tethering her to him. Kai rolls his eyes but complies, and once Cixi is unclipped she’s shooting off into the air like a cerulean bullet. On Kai’s glove, Qinglu watches with wide, fascinated eyes.

  “Come on, then,” Kai says, nudging Qinglu off his hand. She leaves his glove, uncertain at first as she hovers in the air above them. She turns, though, when Cixi nips at her, tendrils flattening against her head before bolting after the larger dragon. Kai smiles at the dragons chasing each other, a small, brief expression, before sitting down on one of the swings. Eli takes the swing next to him, fingers wrapping around the chains automatically. The ground is a plasticky rubber beneath them, thick black material to blunt the blow of falling, and he can’t help but push his feet in, testing the give.

  “When did you find out?” Eli asks.

  “In the last third of spring semester. Ended up changing my summer plans a bit.” Kai shrugs, swings a little back and forth. “Probably for the better, actually — don’t know how long I could have continued before killing one of the stupid first-years I had to work with.”

  Mentally, Eli does the math. Even taking in the issue of belated diagnosis, that would place the disease progression at only a few months, maybe a year at most. Late stage one or early stage two most likely. Damage present but the spread still slow, steady but not yet terminal. Treatable even, given access to proper medical care.

  Out loud, Eli asks, “and what did you tell your family?”

  “What would you tell your family?”

  “So they don’t know.”

  “No,” Kai says after a pause, voice quiet. “They don’t.”

  “Are you going to tell them?”

  “I meant to,” Kai says, “when it first happened. I was going to, but then …” Kai looks away, lips thin. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  Eli wants to protest, but there’s a hard set to Kai’s jaw that tells him not to push. Instead, they watch Cixi and Qinglu weave through the light poles. Cixi’s long, fan-like wings give her a clear speed advantage, but she slows her pace whenever Qinglu falls behind.

  “Your parents,” Kai asks, eyes still on the dragons above their heads. “How did they meet?”

  “PhD program.” Eli glances over, frowning. “Why do you ask?”

  “Curiosity,” Kai says, shrugging. “If it’s going to be a night of personal questions, I think I should have a turn too.”

  “My life’s not that interesting, I should warn you.”

  “Probably not,” Kai agrees. “Most people’s lives aren’t once you know them. I don’t know you, though.”

  “Okay,” Eli says. Above them, Qinglu and Cixi are twin pinpoints, bright darts of color weaving figure eights against the dark sky. “My parents met at grad school, at some mixer. Mom was studying law and Dad was doing something with computers or engineering, and they hit it off. The typical grad student love story. They got married and had me before realizing they were better off being friends. Dad lives in London now, teaches computer science. He tries to visit, but he’s busy and the tickets aren’t cheap. So my mom and grandma raised me. It used to bother me when I was younger, but I don’t mind it now.”

  “Fathers are like that,” Kai says, and there’s something in the way he says it that has Eli glancing at him, but Kai’s gaze has already turned back to the ground. Eli wonders what would have happened if he had turned in time, what expression he would have found on Kai’s face.

  Instead, he asks, “how do you know so much about dragons?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “You asked a question,” Eli points out. “It’s my turn now.”

  “I studied biology,” Kai says. “Of course I’d know about basic veterinary care.”

  “Yes, but …” Eli shakes his head. “There are biology students in our lab, some of them on their master’s or PhD, but they still don’t — their
knowledge is mostly theoretical, I guess, while yours … it feels more familiar. Like you’ve spent time patching up dragons before, not just studied it in books.”

  “Or maybe the students you’ve met are just astonishingly incompetent? You’re not wrong, though.” Kai frowns, pushes slowly back and forth on his swing, metal creaking with every movement. “My parents lived in the countryside — well, it was a small town, really, but close enough to bicycle to the country. We were close to a wildlife rehabilitation center, run by a local Buddhist temple. I used to spend a lot of time there as a kid, watching the nuns take care of the dragons. I was eight, maybe nine when they started letting me help.”

  “That’s very young. You didn’t have, I don’t know, friends you would rather play with?”

  “Not many.” Kai adjusts his position on the swing, eyes tracking Cixi as she swoops through the air. Not far behind, Qinglu blows a gust of air at her, knocking Cixi off course before she rights herself with a squawk of indignation. “I was a strange child.”

  I can imagine, Eli thinks but does not say. “I spent most of my childhood in the library.”

  That earns a snort of amusement. “College professor parents will do that, I imagine.”

  “College professor parents,” Eli agrees solemnly. “Don’t try it, you’ll only end up with impossibly high academic standards and books for friends.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Kai says. Above them, Cixi and Qinglu have settled into a game of diving at each other, twisting away from impact at the last second. It’s a gentler version of the behavior Eli’s seen in dragon fights, play with no real intent beyond the joy of stretching wings through air.

  “Why are you here?” Kai asks.

  “What?” Eli asks. “Do you mean existentially?”

  “If you want to answer that, sure,” Kai says. “But you know what I mean.”

  He does, of course. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Curiosity,” Kai says, shrugging. “And you’re not … all the other students in your program, they’re here because they think it’s somehow good for them or they want an extended vacation. But you, you’re different …”