Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was a place at the edge of town where the road sloped into a gentle hill, overlooking a vacant lot that must have once been the intended site of an apartment complex or shopping center, the project now postponed or abandoned. Eventually, someone would no doubt start building here again, but for now the lot stood empty and apart from the road, so that late at night, the guardrail dropped off into a sea of impenetrable darkness.

Odokawa leaned against the rail, smoking. It was a recent habit and a bad one to learn for someone his age, but he stuck to it, tenderly nursing each cigarette down to the filter. The headlights of passing cars illuminated the garish colors of his shirt, his tusks stained the color of old plastic by nicotine and age. The stars twinkled overhead, unfettered by the city’s light pollution, but he kept his gaze down, at the sea of black. Beside him, his taxicab rested on its tires, engine off, tires settling.

He cast the glowing stub of his cigarette over the rail and watched the dark swallow it. He returned to the car and eased into the driver’s seat and adjusted the mirror; his heavy-lidded walrus’ face looked back at him. The magazines at his feet rustled as he groped through them and produced a half-full bottle of barley tea. He unscrewed the cap, drank deep, then screwed it back on and started the engine. The dashboard glowed with its panoply of lights. These constellations were always familiar.

With a practiced hand, he guided the car off the shoulder and re-entered the circulation of the road, taking his place amongst these late-night drivers, foggy shapes rendered amorphous by window-glass. It was time to go back to work.

*             *             *

His insomnia made the job easier in some ways. He could work through the midnight hours, after the trains shut down and his more weak-willed fellow cabbies returned to their own beds, so customers were easy to find. Often they were on the strange side, but this time of night warped everyone a little, and he was no paragon of normalcy himself.

There were parts of every city wracked with their own sleeplessness, where the storefronts and marquee signs never went dim. Smears of gangrenous color in the surrounding dark. Odokawa trundled down those roads, the shopping centers and red-light districts, watching for a raised hand.

He found one not too far from a large-carnivore hospital near midtown, a spindly shape that stood stiff as a mannequin. When he pulled over, the shape turned out to be a female fox in a cheap blouse and slacks, but still mannequin from the neck up – there was something eerily stiff about her face, beyond the sagging exhaustion of most people he picked up at this hour. It was like it had been whittled out of her skull. The breeze picked up and pushed her clothes against her matchstick build. He let her in.

“Where to?” he asked.

“The Open Window Hostel, please,” she said, in a husky croak of a voice. “District 12.”

“Got it.”

“And can you take the long way?”

The eye in his rearview window narrowed. “What do you mean? There shouldn’t be much traffic.”

“I know. Just take your time, if that’s alright. Show me the sights. I can pay.”

He sighed, whiskers fluttering. Every other late-night fare dragged in some sort of complication. Grasping for reasons not to return home.

“I can bring us around Dura Boulevard,” he said. “It goes past B-Strike. That okay?”

“That’s fine.”

He nodded and pulled back into the street. In the mirror, the fox’s gaze lingered on the driver’s license mounted on his dash, and then drifted back to the window.

Like most cabbies, he navigated by landmarks, like survey stakes pounded in the earth – through his eyes, everything between those guiding points was reduced to abstraction, a snarl of light and uneven geometry which he’d scan for those raised arms. The radio babbled and spit as he took them further into midtown, and the city’s sleepless sparkle washed over his passenger’s unemotive face.

They reached B-Strike, which also stood open at all hours – for the sake of nocturnal customers, he’d always guessed, he never went in there himself. Its irregular shape stood out from its neighbors, like a piece of badly-blown glass. The fox’s head swiveled on her neck as they passed it by, and then it was gone, another fading bit of shine in the mirror.

“None of it’s changed,” she said.

Odokawa didn’t respond.

“I went this way all the time when I was younger,” she said. “I keep expecting to see something different.”

Many people believed it was a cabbie’s responsibility to make conversation, but he’d never agreed with them. He was comfortable to let silence pile up in suffocating layers like woolen blankets until his passengers had no choice but to thrash out of it themselves. But this one seemed nice enough, so he threw her a line.

“Hasn’t been any construction lately,” he said.

“I didn’t mean it that way. I meant…” She trailed off, hands folded in her lap. “Do you ever feel that way? That this whole city’s stayed the same?”

“I wouldn’t know. Haven’t been here long.”

“Oh. How long?”

“I know the roads. That’s about it.” He flicked his blinker on, turned, flicked it off. On a street corner, a heavyset tapir tout vainly tried to bait some canine salarymen into his club. The fox slumped against the passenger door. He felt the silence building up again. When it grew this thick, it usually burst open into something that was better left unsaid.

She told him, “I was in prison. A predatorial offender.”

And there it was.

He knew all about them. It was impossible not to – a sizable portion of his agency’s brief training had dealt with pred offenders, how to appear non-threatening so that herbivorous fares would stay relaxed and calm around him. Maybe they all thought he would drive them onto some deserted backroad and eat them alive. But while he wasn’t exactly thrilled with a vegetarian diet, he’d never been overcome with the urge to eat meat, live or otherwise. It was possible he’d taken on other fares who had that crime on their records, it wasn’t as if they glowed in the dark or anything, but this fox was the first one who’d openly announced it to him.

“Do you have a problem with that?” she asked. Her face still frozen, melancholy in its blankness.

“I’m not totally comfortable with it, if that’s what you mean.”

“I can get off here, if you want.”

“Are you planning to eat me?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Then I don’t care.”

It was an absurd question, in any case. He could have fended her off one-handed, and he was far from the athletic type. She was quiet for a minute and then went on, dripping her unwanted confessions into his ear.

“It built up inside me, for about a year. School was going badly. I didn’t have anyone to talk to. Anything to hope for. One day some homeless rabbit started harassing me on the way home, and, well.” She ran a finger down the windowpane. “I ended up in a…psychiatrist’s office, I guess you could call it. The doctor there tried to rehabilitate me. He thought I could re-integrate without any trouble. But instead, I turned myself in.”

“Noble of you.” His voice was dry enough to boil away any sarcasm.

“I don’t think nobility was part of it. It just felt necessary.”

“How long did they keep you there?”

“Three years. I’ve been out for a few months now. But it’s strange. I don’t feel any different than I did the day I went to the police station.”

“I don’t know what you were expecting.” They were entering the poorer parts of the city now, splintered pavements, irregular lights. His headlights scythed across the road.

“You don’t think jail can change someone?” she asked.

“If it could, then repeat offenders wouldn’t exist. Whether or not you change is up to you.”

For an instant, her face gained a wistful cast, thin as a plume of smoke. “I wonder that that says about me.”

The engine’s hum filled the silence.

“Did you ever see that doctor again?” he asked.

“Yes. He got me a job.”

“He sounds like a decent guy.”

“He did so much for me. I wanted to repay him somehow. Promised I’d be able to smile for him once I got out. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t do it. Not in a way that feels true.” There was grief in her voice but still her expression didn’t move a millimeter. “I feel like I’ve made so many mistakes. The devouring. Turning myself in. Everything was unbearable. I wish that I could find the words for it. When I was younger, my family often brought me to the seaside. I loved to swim, to see how far beneath the water I could go. Alone in that little capsule of silence. But the day came when I dove so deep I couldn’t see the sun, didn’t know which way to go.”

The steering wheel’s aged leather creaked under his grip.

“I did break the surface eventually,” she went on. “My parents pulled me to shore. They were furious, never took me to the beach again. But I found myself there anyway. You breathe and breathe but you never get enough air. There wasn’t anyone to help this time. I chose to shock myself out of it. I had to do something unforgivable, or I’d die. But here I am again. The same place. The same thing.”

It was all too common, passengers treating a taxi like a confessional. Understandable enough – the driver was a neutral party, especially the quieter ones like himself, and after the ride was over, the chances of them ever meeting again were very, very slim. He’d never taken the same fare twice. For that same reason, he was typically unmoved by their woes, but he wasn’t above occasionally speaking a line or two to assuage them, if only so they’d shut up.

“What about the doctor?” he asked.

“What?”

“This doctor of yours. Doesn’t sound like you’d have met him if you’d just kept going to school. Did you have anyone like that before?”

The fox blinked, slowly. “I guess not.”

“Well, that’s something.”

He turned another corner, eased off the gas. She straightened in her seat.

“You said you moved here recently?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Why did you-”

“We’re here.”

He pulled up next to the hostel, a three-story box with most of its windows unlit; from the others, their glow spilled onto paint that may have once been some shade of blue but was now reduced to a sooty gray, peeling like eczema. Cheap lodgings, but he didn’t judge. His own apartment probably wasn’t much better.

“The fare is ¥4150,” he said, and watched her count out exact change and hand it over. “Thank you. Don’t forget anything in the car.”

The door opened and she started to climb out, and then paused at the threshold. Her face was already outside the mirror’s gaze, so that even if some new emotion had crept onto those carved angles, he wouldn’t be able to see it.

“I like your smell,” she said. “That cigarette smell.”

With that, she stepped onto the curb and towards the building’s entrance. The front doors opened, and shut, and she was gone. Odokawa put away the money and, after a moment’s thought, huffed onto his palm and sniffed deep. No trace of smoke. He’d never get used to how sharp some of their noses could be.

There was still time before dawn. He restarted the engine and returned the way he’d come. Behind him, the hostel’s lights became indistinguishable from the surrounding glimmer; one window on the third story was briefly illuminated, and then went out.

Chapter Text

Odokawa knew this one was trouble the minute he waved him down.

He was trawling the entertainment districts tonight, and that meant drunks. They were one more eventuality of the job that he’d long gotten used to, but they came in many forms, and some were vastly more tolerable than others. There were the morose ones, who slumped in their seats as though dissolving in the boozy miasma of their own despair – he liked those best, as long as they remembered to pay and didn’t moan too much. He was okay with the angry ones, because he was terse and big enough so that they would rarely pick a fight, and if they did get too feisty then he could throw them out of his cab. But he couldn’t stand the friendly ones, who always talked too much and too loudly, and the smaller the passenger, the louder they got.

So when he spied this diminutive Shiba Inu in an expensive-looking leather jacket, waving his hand with such vigor that he was in danger of dislocating his arm, he contemplated driving on past. But it had been a slow night, so he hoped for the best and pulled over.

His hopes were dashed the moment his door popped open. The dog clambered in amidst a juniper-smelling haze; he was practically pickled, and in the middle of a cheerily slurring conversation with someone just behind him.

“-worry about it,” he said. “I can cover it! ‘less you wanna hit up another place or two?”

“I think you’ve had enough,” said his unseen companion. Female, and considerably more sober.

“Ha! Heard that one before.” He scootched to the far end of the seat.

“At least you didn’t get into any fights this time. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about us.”

Odokawa cleared his throat, ready to ask them where they wanted to go, and then the other passenger climbed in and he froze.

He was good at identifying species, at least in the general sense. He had an eye for these things. One drizzly night he’d been cruising downtown when he’d glimpsed a bespectacled zebra standing on a street corner, except it hadn’t been a zebra at all – the stripes had been far too bright, slightly raised against his hide, and the gleam of his mane hadn’t been produced by rainwater but the gel he’d used to keep it stiff. Why a black stallion felt the need to disguise himself like that, Odokawa had no idea. The horse’s posture had been bent, defeated, like a derelict’s makeshift shelter, and he’d moved on before he could determine if this damage had been genuine or yet another piece of the disguise.

Odokawa made these judgments easily, reflexively, and then moved on. But his eyes slipped in this moment. The woman’s soft white wool, and the way it piled up around her neck, had him briefly envision her as something other than what she was, spindly and angular. But it passed, and he saw that she was too short, too soft-featured. Some kind of sheep. Not an alpaca.

Unfortunately, the Shiba Inu had taken advantage of his confusion to clamber over the passenger seat and get a leering eyeful of his cab license. He turned to Odokawa, and Odokawa knew at once that this dog, with the sort of ironclad surety afforded only to the drunk, believed that he was about to say something riotously funny.

“Odokawa,” he said. “That’s one awkward-ass name. Like the sound of popping bubbles, yeah?”

He spoke in leaden tones. “Please return to your seat, sir.”

“Ain’t seen a walrus driver before. Most of you sea types can barely walk straight.” He sniggered. “Guess I’m not one to talk, though.”

“Mugi, sit down,” said the sheep. “He’s going to kick us out.”

“Nah, he knows I’m having fun.” But he finally complied.

“Where are you going?” Odokawa asked, gripping the wheel.

“The Hidden Condo apartments,” said the sheep. “Do you take credit cards?”

“Yes.”

“I said I’d cover it, Sebun, relax.” The dog patted his pocket. “Least I can do.”

He started off. Less than a minute later, the dog produced a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and eased one out. Odokawa sighed; was one of those people, all right.

“You can’t smoke in here,” he said.

The dog gave him a look. “You know who I am, buddy?”

“No.”

“Sure about that?” In an instant, he transformed – his haggard, sunken-eyed face became twenty years younger, ears perked, tongue poking out. He looked like a plushie that had gone out cosplaying as a greaser. “Li’l Mugi?”

“Never heard of you.”

And then the expression was gone. He snorted, replacing the cigarettes. “You’ve earned a big tip for that. I don’t even care if you’re lying.”

“Drivers can’t accept tips,” he said.

“But there’s a difference between can’t and don’t, yeah? Just take the win.”

“Mugi used to be a calendar model,” Sebun explained – though Odokawa couldn’t quite see her in the mirror, her voice had the bone-deep weariness of someone accustomed to being the adult in the room.

“Dressing up in fuckin’ maid’s outfits with feather dusters and parfaits,” Mugi said. “More than twenty years of that shit.”

“But you kept doing it,” Odokawa said.

“It ain’t like I knew how to do anything else. My agent grabbed me fresh out of high school.”

“I lived right above him and I had no idea,” said Sebun. “Until he, erm, wound up in the papers one evening.”

Mugi grinned, exposing his fangs. “This dog bites.”

“There was an incident,” she added diplomatically.

“You punch out one tiger and no one lets you hear the end of it! Then it was curtains for Li’l Mugi.” He lounged in his seat. “My agent won’t let me go, though. He’s got me doing bad-boy shoots now. Less cash than the calendar gigs, but at least I don’t have to cross-dress. Only problem now is that anyone who recognizes me wants to test my right hook. So I started bringing Sebun along. They’re not so eager to start shit if I’ve got a lady on my arm.”

“Not in a million years, Mugi.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just yanking your tail. You do keep the assholes off me, though. Thanks for that.”

“I don’t think any girl would set foot in your apartment unless you took a flamethrower to it. You should really take better care of yourself.”

“I’m forty-two years old. Those days are behind me. I can go to a hostess club if I get the urge for that sorta thing.” He cracked a yawn, scratched his chin. “Why aren’t you going steady with anybody yet? You’re the most boring animal I know. Someone like you oughta have gotten hitched already.”

She murmured something noncommittal. Mugi shrugged and turned his attention to Odokawa, instead.

“How about you, friend? Saw you eyeing her up when she got into your car.”

“Oh my God, no he wasn’t.” She leaned into his mirror’s glass. “I’m so sorry, he doesn’t know when to-”

“No, he’s right,” said Odokawa. “I thought you were someone else.”

“Guress it’s hard for you sea-types to tell us apart,” Mugi remarked. “There’s one in my building, nice enough but a total weirdo…”

He had to make this idiot stop talking. “What do you do for a living, miss?”

“Me? I work in a sporting goods store. Corporate stuff. Mugi’s right, I’m very boring.”

“But you still live in that dump with the rest of us freaks,” said Mugi.

“It’s nice enough,” she said. “I never had rooftop cookouts with my old neighbors. Or went drinking with them. Even if you are an obnoxious mutt sometimes.”

“Guilty as charged,” Mugi said airily. “But yeah, I can respect that. Hey, driver, you know her old bosses were using her as a damn therapy animal? They made her sit in conferences all day so they could feel up her wool.”

“Please don’t tell him that,” Sebun groaned.

“These jobs grind away at you. My agent told me about this other model – another sheep, actually, like you, Sebun. Kid was looking like a real up-and-comer. Then the papers sniffed out that he’s been screwing a carnivore on the side. A fuckin’ bear! A pred offender, even!”

“You’re really going to judge someone for that?” she said flatly.

“Not at all. Good for him, I say. But the paparazzi are going to give him hell. I hope he tells all of them to go fuck themselves.” Mugi picked something out from between his teeth and flicked it onto the cab floor. “Sooner or later you have to draw a line. They were gonna make me get plastic surgery before I decked that tiger, and for what? It’s not worth it. You make yourself reliant on these animals you don’t even know and they cut and they carve until you can’t recognize yourself in the fuckin’ mirror. Then they still toss you in the trash, like last year’s calendar.”

Sebun said, “Sometimes I think back to when I was still busting my butt in sales, before my bosses pulled that ‘Lamby’ crap. I don’t know what I was expecting at the end of it. It’s not like they were going to hand me a prize if my numbers were high enough.”

“Right? You have to find a normal that works for you. That’s what’s important.”

“That was awfully pithy, Mugi. Sobering up already?” she teased.

“I’m barely buzzed,” he slurred, philosophically. “That’s what happens when I’m around you. So boring that you suck all the fun outta the air. Would it kill you to really let loose for once?”

“Honey, I work in retail. If you tried to out-drink me, I’d have to call a hearse.”

The dog scoffed but apparently lacked a retort. Their conversation died and Odokawa cherished the silence as he again threaded the car onto the outer roads, where the marquee signs flickered and the asphalt cracked like eczema. Then, Mugi over and whistled.

“You can drop us off here, pal.”

“Are you sure? It’s just around the corner.”

“Yeah, but it’s basically a dead-end road. Be a pain in the ass to get this car outta there. Sebun, wake up.”

“I wasn’t asleep,” she said groggily.

Odokawa quoted the fare and Mugi handed over a credit card. He swiped and handed it back, then opened the passenger door. The air tonight had a damp chill that wormed under his skin. He couldn’t get used to the weather here.

Sebun got out first. He saw her pearly wool reflected in his mirrors.

“Thank you for the ride,” she said.

“Take care, miss.”

Mugi hopped after her, and he shut the door and was about to drive off when there came a knock at his window. He glowered at the Shiba Inu’s cheery face through the glass, and reluctantly rolled the window down. Mugi immediately shoved his arm through, almost close enough for his knuckled to tickle Odokawa’s whiskers. Clutched in his paw were two thousand-yen bills.

He winked. “Didn’t think I’d forget, did you?”

“We can’t accept tips,” Odokawa said woodenly.

“C’mon, drop the humble act already. I bet that you could use it way more than me.”

“You really can’t take no for an answer, can you?” he said. “Probably a good thing that you’re still single, Li’l Mugi.”

Mugi’s eyes widened. Then they narrowed, and as they did, his muzzle creased, wrinkling like a pulled tablecloth; Odokawa observed that he had an impressive set of teeth for someone his size. The growl emerged from deep in his chest, clear as a hissing fuse, but it was drowned out by Sebun’s voice echoing down the street:

“Mugi! Quit hassling him and let’s go!”

He jerked to attention and pulled his arm away, still glaring daggers. Odokawa rolled up the window and drove off. Before he turned the corner, he saw Mugi spit onto the pavement where he’d parked and jam his hands back into his jacket, the money no doubt lost among a galaxy of lint, pocket change, cigarette ends.

Never could stand the talkers.

Chapter Text

Samoyed Street was a breeding ground for nightlife – a glitzy artery running through the city’s sprawling corpus, a four-lane streak of neon where the smell of street food always hung in a mouth-watering mist and the marquee signs flashed in migraine-inducing syncopation. It was on the politer side of sleazy; the hostesses kept their clothes on, the food was still vegetarian, and the diversions trended towards pool halls, karaoke bars, and arcades screaming their electronic din. Samoyed Street never slept. It merely slipped into something more comfortable after sundown.

If Odokawa cruised down these roads around midnight, he was practically guaranteed a fare, but he didn’t bite unless he was particularly desperate. The passengers here paid well enough, but they were often drunk and worse, often young. He wasn’t averse to younger people, per se. He just liked to keep them at a distance, preferably in a different zip code. But he’d been having little luck with his other routes this week and needed to buff his numbers. So he took his cigarette break at the top of the usual hill to prepare himself, and forged onward, into the sparking, howling seizure of Samoyed Street.

As expected, it wasn’t ten minutes before someone flagged him down. A rail-thin coyote and a spotted hyena. Standing unsteady but crisply dressed, probably college kids, the hyena’s beady eyes swimming behind steel-rimmed spectacles. The coyote had his arm around him in a way that suggested they were more than friends – not companionably draped over his shoulder but snaking around the hyena’s chest, hand over his heart. Something a little possessive about it. So this was a coinflip. Either they would keep each other’s rowdiness in check or pinball it between each other until he’d have a headache fit to split his skull. He took the chance and pulled over.

The coyote unlatched himself from the hyena and scootched to the far end of the backseat. He had an interesting pattern on his face, streaks of darker brown like a T-junction going up his muzzle.

“Thanks,” he said. “The last two pricks drove right past us.”

“I keep telling you, they were occupied,” said the hyena.

“How the hell was I supposed to know? Seein’ double over here already. They oughta change the colors on these cab lights, it ain’t fair to canines. No offense,” he added to Odokawa.

“None taken.”

He was about to ask where they were going when the coyote squinted at the dash. He braced himself for the inevitable question.

“Odokawa,” the coyote read slowly. “What kinda name is that?”

“Mine.”

“Is it seaspeak for something?”

“No.”

The hyena came to his rescue. “Kennel Hall Apartments, please. Near Dodome University.”

He pulled away from the curb and set off without another word. Around his car, Samoyed Street continued its gaudy pulse like a slot machine stuck on all-sevens. The coyote settled back into his seat, fingers laced over his stomach.

“Sorry for grilling you about your name like that. I wasn’t trying to be, like, specist or anything.”

“It’s fine.”

“I’m Durham. This guy here’s Miguno. Or Migs.” He turned to the hyena, grinning cheekily. “Miggsy.”

“Hammy,” the hyena deadpanned.

The grin vanished. “Oh, no. Never-ever.”

“You worried? Worried it sounds stupid? Does Durry worry?”

“Alright, shit, you don’t gotta be like that.” He pouted. “I think Miggsy’s cute.”

Odokawa stared impassively at the road. That removed all doubt. Friends didn’t try to one-up each other with pet names. He reached over and turned on the radio.

These days, if he didn’t have any passengers, he usually drove in silence. He didn’t recognize anything that came out of the radio’s speakers anymore. The music, the sports, the comedy – the broadcasters’ laughter was the same, at least, but all their material was beyond him, their mirth floating along devoid of context like seafoam on black water. So he preferred the quiet, but his fares often got antsy without white noise, so he would tune into some bland late-night broadcast to fill the air between them.

“Hey, driver,” said Durham. “What kinda music do you like?”

“Nothing you’d know about.”

“Try us,” said Miguno. He kept his gaze out the window; they were pulling away from Samoyed Street at last, and the diminishing lights were reflected on his glasses.

“We actually got back from karaoke. Migs bringing down the house.”

“Not really.”

“Yes really. Your pipes haven’t changed a bit, dude.” He was getting worked up now; in Odokawa’s mirror, he grinned and pointed at his boyfriend. “Used to have his own band, you know? The Leftovers.”

“It was a while ago,” said Miguno. “But it’s still nice to sing every now and then.”

Odokawa didn’t inquire further, partly because he didn’t care, but he also recognized the hyena’s tone of voice. It was one he’d used many times himself, trying to smother the topic with sheer disinterest. Miguno didn’t want to be talking about this any more than Odokawa wanted to hear it.

“You could have probably gone on for at least another hour,” said Durham, cheerfully oblivious. “The crowd was going nuts. Pounding the tables and everything.”

“I have classes tomorrow, Durham. Crack of freaking dawn, too. I don’t wanna be a zombie going into Business Stats.” He sighed, fogging the window glass. “Driver, is it midnight yet?”

“Ten minutes past.”

“Yeah, definitely had to put down the mic. Hope I don’t wake up with a hangover.”

That thread of conversation finished its unspooling. The radio’s burble was the only sound in the cab for a little while, as the two canines got out their phones, bathing their faces in ghostly light. At one point Durham laid his hand on the gulf of empty upholstery between them, and Miguno reached over, gave it a quick, assuring scratch, and went back to scrolling.

“Gonna rain tomorrow,” Durham said. “Or today, whatever.”

“Seems that way.”

The unsteady tempo of claws on phone screens.

“Have you checked out Rio’s feed lately?” Durham asked. “He dropped another track.”

“Last Tuesday, right? Or was there another?”

“No, that’s the one.”

“Yeah, I heard it. It was good stuff. You wouldn’t expect a vulture to handle a guitar like that, but he’s really come into his own.”

“Way more mellow than the stuff he did with you, though. Lots of little plinky notes. I liked it better when his riffs were more…I dunno, crunchy?”

“I’m not surprised. He was never a huge fan of our style.” Miguno said this without rancor, but Durham looked up from his phone like he was taking offense for both of them.

“Seriously? Then why the hell’d he stick around?”

“You can’t be picky when you’re starting out. And he never made a big deal out of it. The rest of the band always figured that if any of us went pro it’d probably be him.”

“Yeah, well, there he is.”

Miguno nodded. “There he is.”

“Meanwhile, Russ went and knocked somebody up, Czes fucked outta town to who-knows-where, and then there’s you.” He snorted. “The accountant.”

Miguno didn’t reply or change his expression, but the temperature in the car noticeably dropped by a couple degrees. Durham cleared his throat, pressed himself a bit closer to the door.

“That could’ve come out better, huh?” he asked.

“It’s fine,” Miguno said flatly.

“I wasn’t dissing you or anything, I’m just-”

“I said it’s fine. I understand. You’re drunk.”

“That’s not why I brought it up, Migs. Don’t put that on me.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Miguno growled.

“You think I was exaggerating when I said you brought down the house back there? Every time we go to karaoke I get animals asking me what the hell you’re doing in there when you could be going platinum. Then you step back off and it’s like somebody flipped a switch. It’s like the only time I even get to talk to you anymore is when we go out singing because you’re so fucking tired all the time.”

“That’s what college does to you.” He shoved his phone into his pocket, rubbed the eyes beneath his glasses. “I’m not a genius like Jack, so instead I have to work. I’m doing my best, man. For both of us.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t need you to support me!” Fangs glinting now.

“And I don’t want to be thirty years old and still playing shit gigs on your parents’ dime,” Miguno snapped back. “It was cute when we were in high school, Durham, but the show’s over. We’ve gotta grow up at some point.”

“Don’t give me that suit-and-tie bullshit.” Now the empty seat between them was contested territory, their snarling muzzles closing in. “You think getting older means eating shit ‘til you get to like the taste? Screw that. I’m gonna come out and say it – you pussed out ‘cause you were scared you wouldn’t make it big. You do what you gotta, but this ain’t you, Migs.”

“Then maybe you can fuck off, too!” Miguno shouted. “Because I’m not interested in going out with someone who thinks the world stopped when he turned eighteen!”

Odokawa said, “This is why brats like you drive me crazy. All day, all night, all you can ever talk about is who’s screwing who and how long you can keep it up. If you’re going at each other’s throats like this because of a night of karaoke then you’d might as well call it quits right now, before you have to start dealing with real problems.”

This little speech was delivered in a low voice, without passion or resentment, but both canines turned and stared like he’d drawn a revolver and fired it into the ceiling. Odokawa didn’t flinch as Durham lunged forward, his snarling bullet of a head jutting through the spaces between seats. Odokawa felt the coyote’s hot breath on his cheek.

“Nobody asked you, asshole.” His voice was deadly quiet, buried like a landmine beneath his growl. “How about you mind your own fucking business?”

The engine hummed beneath their feet. Someone on the radio laughed at a punchline gone unheard, orphaned by the sudden drama in this car.

“You’re right,” Odokawa said. “That was uncalled for. Sorry.”

Durham’s face smoothed out and he blinked, perplexed – clearly he hadn’t been expecting an apology. He looked around the front seats as if wondering how he’d gotten there, and then slumped back, arms crossed.

“Whatever,” he said.

The two of them had stopped arguing, but the atmosphere in the car was still volatile. The silence returned, twisting through the car like fog. Like firedamp gas. Odokawa remembered the little chat he’d had with that frozen-faced fox, harsh truths sparking off in silence like this. He made an effort to clear the air.

“What did this band of yours play?” he asked.

Miguno jerked in his seat like he’d sat on a tack, ears swiveling. “Huh?”

“Genre-wise, I mean.”

“Oh, well, probably nothing you’d like. It was sort of post-punk thrashcore stuff.”

“So you played fast and yelled a lot.”

He chuckled at that. “Pretty much.”

“Hyenas usually try to keep their voices under control,” Durham said. “So it gave him a chance to cut loose.”

“Yeah, usually our laugh creeps other animals out.”

“But not me,” said Durham.

“But not you,” Miguno agreed. “Plus we’ve got some pretty big teeth for carnivores our size.” He bared his gleaming choppers for a second, an ivory trap buried in his gums. “So image-wise, it worked. Even if it was hell on my throat sometimes.”

“You never answered my question before, old-timer,” Durham said. “What’re you into?”

“I used to listen to rakugo, I guess.”

Durham’s eyes went wide, turning the T-junction of his face markings into a pair of cul-de-sacs. Then he giggled helplessly.

“Oh shit,” he said. “Sorry, it’s just…I was expecting you to like something old, but that’s real old. Like, advanced old.”

Miguno nodded. “It’s pretty old.”

“My grandad used to listen to that when he clipped his bonsai. You like bonsai?”

“No. I didn’t really like the music, either. It just helped me sleep.”

“Did it stop working?” Miguno asked.

“Yes.”

“You should try rock n’ roll sometime.”

“Funny,” Odokawa said dryly.

“No, I’m serious.” Miguno leaned over, glasses twinkling. “Most rock’s got a nice steady rhythm and repetitive percussion. Keep the volume low enough and it can really help.”

“Rock you to sleep,” Durham quipped.

“It’s mostly a genre for middle-aged guys these days, anyway. There’s a reason they call it dad-rock.”

“He doesn’t look like a dad,” said Durham. “Are you a dad?”

“No.” He waited for a stoplight to change.

“I didn’t mean it that way. It’s a state of mind, you know?” said Miguno.

“The state of dad,” Durham mused. “Dadliness.”

That got a full laugh out of Miguno, and Odokawa could understand what they meant about hyena laughs – bright and jagged like he was coughing up broken glass. He stopped short and rubbed his mouth like he was embarrassed at the escaping sound.

“Anyway,” he said. “Food for thought.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” said Odokawa.

They were approaching their destination now. Neighborhoods around college campuses often inherited a sort of forced quaintness, the buildings all sheared low and glass-fronted, and Dodome was no different. Odokawa navigated around darkened cafés and antique shops, his headlights passing over sidewalks cobblestoned like beehives. The silence in the car returned. Not fog, maybe, but the ocean tide, going out. Durham huddled in his corner of the cab like a child.

“Miguno.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you really want this to be over?”

The shutter-snap of streetlights. The engine’s placid drone. If Odokawa slammed the gas pedal down now it would erase this world, tear it down like crepe paper to reveal something new beneath. And then what?

“I want you to be happy,” Miguno said quietly. “That’s all I want.”

The apartment building was a tidy little thing – redbrick walls, hedges in need of a trim. Most of the windows were still lit, and their glow lay sickly on the cab as he pulled up to the curb. Durham offered his credit card as Miguno exited the cab.

“I shouldn’t have popped off at you like that,” he said. “You probably have to put up with this shit ten times a day, right?”

“It’s fine. Are you getting out with him?”

“Yeah, don’t wait up. I’ve got something to take care of still.”

“All right. Don’t forget anything in the car.”

Durham nodded and took back the card, then followed Miguno out. Odokawa idled there a few minutes longer, watched Miguno climb the building’s stoop and turn back at Durham, who stood at the bottom step, hands at his sides. Like a supplicant at some temple’s altar. They said something to each other, the words obscured by the dark and muffled by window-glass, and Miguno made a vague gesture at the front door, but Durham stayed where he was, scraping the pavement with his soles. Odokawa drove off then, and didn’t look in his rearview mirror. He let them remain that way, in that mute tableau – the hyena inviting the coyote in, and the coyote wondering if he should just get gone.

Chapter Text

His routine outside of work changed little. He had a small apartment on the eastern part of town with thin walls and small closets; in the early days he would smoke and stare out his window at the mountains, those black hulks beyond the periphery of city lights, his radio playing rakugo music so quietly that even the roaches couldn’t hear it. He found a dingy izakaya where no one bothered him much about the way he looked, and spent his paychecks there or at a bathhouse near his apartment, taking refuge in the clouds of steam. He subsisted mostly on bar food and cup noodles, and wasted daylight hours in the usual way, motionless on his apartment floor as the insomnia gnawed at him, until the sun kissed the horizon and he could go back to his cab, as tired as he’d been when he’d first laid down.

He was accustomed to living this way, skulking through the world like someone trapped in a museum after hours – wary of what to touch and where to step, in case it might set off an alarm – but the cab had always been his territory, and that hadn’t changed either. In here, people could point and joke at his name or his tusks, but then they had to settle back and let him drive. That assurance was enough to keep him awake, no matter how late the hour grew, no matter how the shapes around his car fell away into abstract blur. His only worry was that the tide would roll out too far one day, his stamina drop too low, and he’d black out long enough to hit someone’s fender or a streetpost. That had never happened, or even come close to happening, but if it did then that would mean the end of his job. Probably for good, in this town. He already had everyone at the dispatch side-eyeing him because of his species.

It was one in the morning and he felt more run down than usual – the changing weather, maybe. He’d gulped down two bottles of tea and a can of iced coffee, the caffeine prickling beneath his scalp. The night had started off fairly busy but dropped off around eleven-thirty, and he sought out fares for the stimulation as much as the cash. One mismatched pair flagged him down, almost too late, but he pulled over and let them in.

His car was on the bigger side, which occasionally made for interesting situations with his passengers. The backseat had once hosted a family of eight shrews who’d chattered in their tinny voices the whole trip. Most of the larger pachyderms couldn’t be admitted at all, but he’d once given a ride to a polar bear who’d spent the entire drive in a malformed fetal position, trying to hold onto his dignity as Odokawa gunned the engine on uphill slopes. The lioness who climbed in now wasn’t quite that tall, but still hunched in the seat with hands on her knees like some smug villain in a spy movie. Hopping in after her was a barn owl who maybe came up to her waist, bright-eyed and clutching a beaten leather shoulder bag. Odokawa had to go through some creative tweaking with his mirror to get them both in view.

“You okay back there?” he asked.

“It’s fine. ‘bout as good as it’s gonna get,” said the lioness, with a lopsided grin. Another tipsy one – she sounded like she was talking around a mouthful of soup. Her tawny muzzle was speckled gray.

“Drop me off at District 7, please,” the owl chirped. “And then could you bring my friend here to Capeside View Apartments off Taino Avenue?”

“You got it,” said Odokawa.

There was some traffic tonight, despite the late hour. As Odokawa meandered through the other cars, he heard the rustling of paper. The owl was flipping through the brochures on the back of his seat. They’d all been supplied by dispatch; anyone who asked Odokawa for destination hotspots invariably wound up disappointed.

“Driver, do you mind if I leave something of my own in here?” he asked.

“Depends on what it is.”

“Oh, it’s nothing risqué. Just a menu for my restaurant.”

“That’s fine,” he said, and the owl unlatched his bag. “You carry those around with you?”

“Never miss a chance to advertise!” he said cheerfully.

The lioness drawled, “He’s the kinda guy who’s only got one setting on his dial, if you know what I mean.”

“Guilty as charged.” The owl beamed into Odokawa’s mirror. “Sunaga the barn owl. I run a noodle shop near the coast. Best udon in the city, I guarantee you. This here’s Mika, our top server.”

“Oldest, mostly.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Mika.” He gave her a friendly nudge and turned back to Odokawa. “Driver, you’re welcome to stop by there yourself. We serve seas all the time.”

“Appreciate it,” he said flatly.

The car in front of him was slow to move; he smacked the horn, causing both of them to jump a little. He eyed the lioness in his mirror; she’d gone to staring out the window.

“So you two are co-workers,” he observed. “Were you celebrating something?”

“No, we just went out for a few drinks,” said Sunaga.

“You’ve known each other a long time, then.”

“Since the start,” said Mika.

“Yes, eleven years as of last month. She was my second hire! The first one accidentally set his feathers aflame two months in. Kind of scared him off the whole business.”

She chuckled hoarsely. “I remember that.” Then her face fell. “Can’t remember his name, though.”

“It’s on the tip of my tongue, give me a minute…”

“No, it’s fine. Not important.”

The pale oblong of Sunaga’s face crinkled then, concerned. “Are you okay, Mika? I thought that saké tasted a little off.”

“I’m all right,” she said.

Odokawa’s eyes flicked toward her, then back to the road. He rubbed his thumbs on the interior of his steering wheel, the leather bleached from abrasion.

“I hope you didn’t talk about work the whole time you were there,” he said.

“What, Oh, no, it was…well, we chatted about sports for a little while at first, but then it was mostly workplace gossip, so I guess that counts.”

Mika snorted. “Like I said, one setting.”

Sunaga looked back and forth between the two of them, then shrank back in his seat. His beak clacked, a classic sign of anxiety for his type, but he got himself under control.

“It’s true, I have a one-track mind,” he said bashfully. “Sort of necessary, if you want to run a business in this city.”

Mika still wouldn’t meet anyone’s eye. The prickle on Odokawa’s scalp wasn’t just from the caffeine’s buzz, now. He tried to be conciliatory.

“I guess that I’m a workaholic myself,” he said.

“I bet. Driving around at these hours. Do you enjoy it? I imagine you’d have to.”

“It’s what I do. Liking or disliking doesn’t really enter into it.”

“You know what a workaholic is?” Mika asked. “Someone who has the same answer to the questions ‘who are you’ and ‘what do you do.’”

Sunaga laughed. “That’s not bad! Certainly describes me.”

Odokawa grunted in assent. He hadn’t really thought of himself as anything but a taxi driver in a long time. But Mika went on talking, voice hazy, like she was being interrogated by her reflection in the window glass.

“Who am I and what do I do?” she asked. “I’m a waitress.”

“A server,” Sunaga corrected. “Much more respectable.”

“A waitress,” she repeated dully. “And a dead end.”

The silence fell like an axe blade. Sunaga recoiled away from her, blinking. Odokawa kept his eyes on the road.

Mika said, “That’s how it goes. Life was rolling along. Then it stopped, at that restaurant. I’ve lost track of how many animals in that kitchen I’ve seen come and go. But I’m still there. Still smiling. Day in, day out. The same thing.”

Sunaga’s beak started clacking again. “Mika, where’s this coming from? Was it something I-”

“I can’t find anyone else, you know,” she interrupted, in that same dreamy slur. “You think I’d go out with you if I could? Dead-end waitress. Even when I’m not there I can’t get away from it. Because of you.”

He looked to Odokawa; his round black eyes were festooned with a sheen of panic. Odokawa squeezed the wheel tight.

“Driver, could you pull over? I don’t think she’s feeling well.” Through some mighty effort, Sunaga still sounded calm.

“We’re in traffic,” said Odokawa. Cars on all sides. And while he also kept his voice steady, sweat was beading on his brow. This lioness had seemed okay, but she’d turned out to be the worst sort of all. Plenty of people got aggressive when they hit the bottle too hard, but for a select few, the combination of alcohol and their pent-up resentment turned into nitroglycerin inside their heads, and all it took was a little shake to make them explode. Odokawa himself seldom felt endangered by them – he personally never gave them enough cause to blow up in his direction – but it was a different story for any luckless saps sharing the backseat. This woman could reach out with one hand and remove the owl’s head as easily as a jar lid.

She was rotating towards Sunaga now. Her eyes gleamed yellow in the surrounding headlights. Odokawa approached a stoplight and tried to speed through, but it too turned yellow and he silently cursed, easing off the gas. Sunaga’s beak sounded off like an SOS in Morse.

“Mika, if this is about your pay, I’d be happy to discuss it.” His tone was pleading. “We were having a nice evening. You know that I appreciate you!”

“Sure. Your fucking charity case.” White streaks opened up on the backseat as her claws raked the upholstery. “Hey, boss. Do you think anyone would notice if we both disappeared tonight?”

The passenger door swung open.

Lioness and owl both started at the rush of smoggy air coming into the cab; they blinked and looked around like they’d been woken from a dream. Odokawa kept his gaze on the stoplight as it went green. The cars swerved around his cab, their horns rending the air.

“Take it outside,” he said. “I’m not cleaning up after you.”

He’d opened the door on Sunaga’s side, to give the owl an easy exit. Mika flinched in the other direction, rubbing her hands, claws receded. It took Sunaga several more seconds to catch up with reality; his wings rose and fell like some half-hearted form of calisthenics, and then he reached into his bag and shakily withdrew some cash.

“Right,” he said at last. “I can get off here. Driver, could you please take her the rest of the way home? This should cover the trip.”

He took the money without bothering to count it. “If she causes any trouble, she’s out.”

“I understand. Mika, I’ll see you later, all right? Get some rest.”

The light had changed again as they’d talked. Odokawa had time to watch Sunaga get out and hurry to the sidewalk, casting glances back to the car the whole way. He held onto his bag for dear life; as Odokawa drove off, Sunaga unclasped it again and looked inside, bending over like he wanted to fall in.

Mika had gone mute, sullen. The clawmarks she’d made in the seat glowed like mother-of-pearl. Odokawa wasn’t worried about the damage – the camera mounted above his mirror had no doubt caught that whole sorry incident, so the repairs wouldn’t come out of his pay – but his blood thumped hot when he saw it anyway. The worst fares invariably left their sordid marks on his car. Clawmarks, ashes, liquor, spittle, vomit, blood. Torn seating. Marred carpet. Broken windows so the wind would howl through.

“I’m not drunk,” Mika muttered.

“Sure you’re not.”

“I mean it.” Light passed over her face like bad weather. “It’s the same every time. I’ll call him tomorrow and ask if I did anything embarrassing, and then I’ll show up for work smiling. Oblivious. And he’ll think I was too wasted to remember what I’d done. But I remember it all, every time.”

“You always treat him like this?”

“No. This was the worst. I wonder if he’ll finally catch on. Let me go.”

The traffic around them had finally dispersed. Mika stared at the sidewalks in their gaudy coronas, where people still walked arm-in-arm. Using each other’s bodies as shelter against this menacing hour.

“Almost fifty,” she said. “One divorce. Can’t count the breakups. Male lions are the most worthless creatures alive. But even the desperate ones don’t want much to do with me.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “Inter-species hookups are all the rage, these days. But I’m too old to change. Too old for much of anything, anymore.”

Odokawa said nothing.

“He really is a good guy. Sunaga. He looks after everyone he’s ever hired. Held me up, for all these years. But eventually you just want to get it over with and hit bottom.” She sighed. “You know, there’s this Komodo dragon who stops by the restaurant every so often. One of my old co-worker’s relatives. Not bad-looking for a reptile. I get the sense he’s in the same boat.”

“Maybe talk to him instead of threatening your boss, then.”

“Yeah. You know they’re not legally allowed to be with other animals? One kiss and they can dump enough venom to kill you on the spot.” A wistful little smile crept up her cheeks. “Sometimes I fantasize about grabbing him and planting one on him right in the middle of the restaurant. At least then I’d go out feeling something.”

“And how would he feel about that?” Odokawa asked.

The smile disappeared. “I know. It’s not like I was going to do it.”

“Just like you weren’t going to disembowel somebody in my cab.” He turned the wheel sharply, making her rock in place. “And he still cared about you enough to pay your fare. If you want to die so badly, then go ahead and die. But don’t drag everyone else down with you.”

Her upper lip curled, exposing the milky tip of a fang. He heard that cannon-fuse growl, just as with Mugi, and this woman was a hell of a lot bigger. But the car’s speedometer didn’t waver, and the camera’s black eye looked on.

“I want to get out,” she said. “Let me out.”

“Suit yourself.”

He pulled over and opened the door and she lurched across the seat and away from the car; he smacked the Close button the instant her tail cleared the doorway. She clutched onto a lamppost like a ship’s mast in a typhoon, tail lashing, claws raking the metal, and a passing caracal gave her a wide berth. A second later, a turned corner, and she was at last erased from his sight.

Odokawa was tired.

He kept driving, for a little while. Beneath the streetlights’ glare, the soft folds of his face were so motionless that they seemed carved and rigid as his tusks, like the marbled fabric of some Renaissance sculpture. He broke away from the circulation of traffic and into the darker spaces, the back roads he’d traversed in the early days, when he’d still been looking for places to eat, drink, wash. And for other landmarks. Stops that no passenger would visit or name.

On these roads was a children’s park nestled in a copse of immature trees like broken-limbed dancers. The rides were gently decayed – the roundabout squealing every half-turn, the swings’ chains freckled with rust. Odokawa pulled over across from the park and let the engine idle as he counted the money Sunaga had given him. It was enough to cover the fare and then some. He could stop for today.

He switched the engine off and the dark and the quiet crashed into him. No stars tonight; the clouds were forecasted to persist until the weekend. In the distance he could see specks of light from other anonymous windows, and in his rearview mirror was the city’s gaudy glow, never fully erased, not unless you went all the way to the edge of town. Odokawa closed his eyes and laid his head against the steering wheel, listening to his own breath until it became a foreign thing, the surf crashing against some interior beach, a tide that went out, went out, and never came back in.

Chapter Text

The weather grew warmer, and the change brought rain. Odokawa spent night after night driving to the dull rhythm of his windshield wipers, the raindrops tracing their calligraphy on his side windows. This weather brought fewer fares, but the ones he did get were often more well-behaved, grateful to have a place to shelter as they made their way home. He accepted damp-cornered wads of cash and wiped credit cards dry on his pantleg, and the passengers murmured their thanks and exited the cab into the drops and mists and hammering sheets of rain.

Tonight’s downpour had petered out sometime after midnight, and seemingly scoured the city clean of pedestrians. Odokawa scanned the sidewalks for another hour, then two, but the few bedraggled people he saw didn’t flag him down. When four o’clock rolled around and the skies began to lighten grey, he decided to cut his losses and call it a night.

The streetlights flicked off but the aftermath of the storm created its own light. Rainwater puddled in the gutters and coursed down awnings, lent its sheen to the dimmed marquees. Like someone had stretched plastic wrap over the whole city. Odokawa’s headlights were reflected at him fivefold as he proceeded down empty streets.

Strange times, in this strange town. He was a newcomer to this place and took little interest in its affairs, but even he could tell that something momentous had transpired here not too long ago. The snatches of news he occasionally heard from the radio would sometimes mention some sort of incident several years ago – vaguely, furtively – before moving on, and the aftershocks of this incident had also made themselves known in his passengers. Every so often, a patter of conversation would suddenly cut short, or veer down another path, like a raindrop changing course to devour another one nearby. This happened especially often when the topic involved relations between carnivores and herbivores, and even moreso when meat was involved. Odokawa knew meat consumption was illegal, but he’d had plenty of fares who trumpeted their illicit vices so proudly that even an amateur could probably lip-read it off his cab’s camera footage. This was different. Their sudden silences had a whiff of the superstitious about them. As though these people believed speaking too freely would restart some prior catastrophe.

Well, the disaster, whatever it was, had come and gone. And in its wake, he’d arrived, borne on its slipstream to a foreign place that had been even further transformed.

He returned to the backstreets, their uneven sidewalks and cracked pavements turned to basins of rainwater, and as he approached one corner he spied something odder than usual. A lone pedestrian ambling down the sidewalk, leaping joyfully into puddles like a grade-schooler – but this person was around six feet tall, and approximately spherical in build. He was also soaked to the bone, his silvery hide made sleeker, clothes clinging to his beachball of a body. The stranger turned as Odokawa’s headlights passed over him, peered through his windshield, and began frantically waving both arms over his head. Presumably flagging him down.

What the hell, Odokawa thought. He was still technically on the clock. He pulled the car over.

The passenger turned out to be a seal, his flabby face pushing his expression into a permanent amiable squint. He made his way into the car with some difficulty, sat down with an audible squelch, and then started to talk. At least, Odokawa believed it to be speech. The seal spoke in a stream of lip-smacking gibberish that sounded like a pot of stew on full boil. When his introduction petered out, there was a long and excruciatingly awkward silence.

“I’m sorry,” Odokawa said. “I don’t understand.”

“Oh! I apologize,” the seal said – perfectly comprehensible now, though with an exaggerated primness to his speech that made it sound a bit like he was knitting the sentences together one syllable at a time. “Perhaps my seaspeak is not so good these days.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. I just don’t speak the language.”

The seal tilted his head. “A semi who does not know seaspeak?”

“Guess so.”

“That is very strange!” He said this with delight, which Odokawa found a bit inappropriate. “I am Sagwan. What is your name?”

“Odokawa.”

“That name is also strange. I have not heard it before!”

“I get that a lot,” he said. “Where do you want to go?”

“The Hidden Condo apartments, please.”

Odokawa hesitated for an instant before he set his destination. That was the same place that obnoxious Shiba Inu had wanted to go. He didn’t like coincidences. They brought back memories.

Sagwan sat in the middle of the backseat, his blubber puddling out a bit to either side – even smaller passengers would have probably had a hard time sharing that space with him. And as they set off, he wouldn’t keep still. He rocked side to side, hummed tunelessly, gaped happily at the car’s roof like he’d found money up there. Odokawa was getting more worn out just by watching him.

“I do not ride in taxicabs often,” Sagwan said. “The trains, yes, every now and then, but this is different. The walls and ceiling are so close!” He held out his arms to illustrate. “Always so different from the sea. Everywhere you go, everything is so close. I still have not become used to it.”

“You’re one of those sea animals, huh?”

Again that quizzical head-tilt. “As are you. Yes?”

He quickly changed the subject. “What are you doing out here so early? Work or something?”

“Ah, no. I am a seaspeak translator, but I do not work this early. No, I woke because of the rain.”

“The rain?”

“The rain!” he repeated jubilantly. “When I hear it on my window, I cannot help but go out. It is a wonderful feeling. Like the best of land and sea.”

“So you just walk around?” Odokawa asked. “You’re a long way from home. Must’ve been going at this for a while.”

“Yes, it was still quite dark when I left. But I do not mind. The rain on my pelt feels so nice. At first I would go out with no clothes, but everyone would point and yell, and the police would get angry.” Sagwan shrugged and smiled wider. “Every day I was learning something new.”

He wasn’t all that different from the foreigners Odokawa had driven around back home. Energetic as a kid on a sugar rush, their words suffused with a kind of mad amazement at everything. They were talkers, but more tolerable than most, as long as they didn’t treat him like a tour guide. And Odokawa had very little standing on which to criticize foreigners anymore.

“How long have you been living on land?” he asked.

“Some time. Some years.”

“Think about going back?” He waited at a stoplight, though there was no one else on the road.

“Oh, yes. Many times. More and more.” Sagwan deflated somewhat. “I have good friends here. Good neighbors. One very good friend in particular. We met some years ago, and find we live in the same building. Many nights we spent talking together, learning from one another.” The papers on the back of Odokawa’s seat rustled. “Aha! He was a worker for this restaurant! The noodles there are so delicious. You cannot find them in the sea.”

Coincidences, coincidences. “He still working there?”

Sagwan shook his head. “He moved away. He becomes engaged! I am so happy for him. But a little sad for myself. And confused that I am feeling sad.”

“Not that confusing. You liked him and he left. It happens.”

“Mm. How do I explain.” He went very still as he pondered. “It is the attitude of the sea. Nothing there is ever still, yes? The currents come, they go, they carry away and bring back. You become used to this. But here everything is solid and heavy. They move little. So many times I walk into heavy things! When they finally do move away, it is much more…”

“Significant?”

“I think so. No water rushes in to fill the empty place. It is like a piece of you goes with them. An aching spot.” He cast his gaze to the taxi’s ragged floormats. “I am glad my friend has this piece of me. But I do not think I should lose too many more.”

“He’s still in town, isn’t he?” Odokawa swerved to avoid a pothole, a tiny wellspring in the road. “You can see him again.”

“That is true. I must be there when he is married, at least.” Sagwan brightened up again. “You are very good at landspeak.”

“It’s all I know.”

“But were you not born in the sea?”

Veering dangerously close to unanswerable questions. But in this gray dawn, with this gray buddha of a fare, his jaw was looser than usual.

“I don’t like water,” he said.

Sagwan didn’t reply. His nostrils flared, apparently a sign of perplexment. They were exceptionally large. Like the boreholes of a revolver.

“I’m okay with rain,” Odokawa continued. “And steam, and taking showers. But I can’t stand being in the water. Literally. If it comes up past my knees I get weak all over. The sound of waves makes me feel sick. Do you get it now? I’m nothing like you.”

The seal was quiet for a while, long enough so that Odokawa believed that was the end of it, that this whole bizarre conversation had been safely amputated. Then:

“It must be lonely,” he said.

Odokawa’s sole cradled the gas pedal. He remembered the sensation of smashing it all the way down. The specks of light flanking the road becoming a ribbon, as if tied together by his engine’s roar.

“That’s nothing new for me,” he replied. “Like you said. I’m strange.”

“That is no reason to be lonely. My friend, he was also not very normal. And neither were his friends. Perhaps that is why they were his friends. I think so.”

“Could be. It’s something they have in common. But there’s different kinds of strangeness. And the kind here…it isn’t the one I know.” He glanced at the rearview mirror, the sagging crescent of his eye. “Everyone here is what I expect them to be.”

Sagwan said nothing.

“It’s not your fault if you don’t understand,” said Odokawa. “Some things are hard to explain no matter how well you know the language.”

They had reached familiar streets – he recognized these crummy backroads from the last drive, even if they’d been rendered a bit off-kilter by the tarnished dawn light. Not too long from now, the early commuters would be waking up, the city’s pulse quickening once more.

“I’ll drop you off here,” he said, pulling over at the adjacent corner. “It’s hard to park on the road in front of that place, right?”

Sagwan nodded. “The road is narrow. There are many stairs.”

“Then your fare’s three thousand yen.”

It was actually around ¥3200, but he felt like rounding down. Nevertheless, Sagwan struggled a bit getting out a waterlogged wallet and peeling out the correct bills. At least he paid with exact change.

“Thank you,” he said, quietly resolving to dry them out with the heater on the way home. “Don’t forget anything in the car.”

The seal left without a word. Odokawa carefully laid out the money beside his gearshift, and then jumped as a knock came at his door. He turned to see Sagwan there, hovering beside the car like a tiny planetoid.

Odokawa rolled down the window. “What is it?”

“It is difficult to park, that is true,” Sagwan said. “But I would like you to walk me to the Hidden Condo.”

“I’m pretty sure you know the way.”

“Yes, but I do not feel safe! It is so scary.” He clutched himself and shivered in a wholly unconvincing fashion. “Please walk with me? I will pay you a tip!”

The words we don’t accept tips rose up in Odokawa’s throat, but before they could make it past his back teeth, he rolled his eyes, gulped them down, and opened his glove compartment. Sagwan waited patiently as he fished out his cigarettes and joined him on the sidewalk. Odokawa winced; he’d been sitting for hours and his knees popped like firecrackers.

“Let’s get this over with,” he said.

They didn’t have far to walk. When they turned the corner, Odokawa understood at once what Sagwan and Mugi had been talking about – this wasn’t so much a road as an oversized footpath, riddled with potholes like it had suffered a recent artillery strike, and dropping off into a long and winding set of stairs further into the entrails of downtown. The two of them took up most of the path; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d walked alongside somebody.

“Your car is very wet now,” Sagwan remarked. “I am sorry.”

“That’s fine. It’ll dry out.”

Mugi hadn’t been kind in his description of the Hidden Condo, and rightly so. It huddled beneath the shadow of the nearby cable bridge, a stained and splintered old cuss of a building that bore its dilapidation like a soldier’s uniform. The coming dawn brought fog that curled around its creaking balconies and hastily-cleared clotheslines; its foundation was a graveyard of broken glass, cigarette butts, dirty magazines rendered into meaty scrawl by rainwater and filth. As Odokawa looked up, one door slid open and spat out a hulking black bear like a bizarre magic trick; he spied Odokawa and Sagwan below, waved halfheartedly with his coffee cup, and turned his attention to the city’s misty skyline.

“Is it not nice?” Sagwan asked. It was impossible to tell if he was being serious.

“It’s somewhere to be, I guess.” Odokawa tapped out one of his cigarettes. “I don’t exactly live in a palace myself.”

“Perhaps you can move here! The rooms are very affordable. I could teach you seaspeak. It would be helpful for when you give rides to semis like me, yes?”

He snorted; that actually wasn’t a half-bad argument. “I think I’ll pass.”

Sagwan seemed unruffled. He got out his wallet and clumsily removed another bill and held it out. After a moment’s hesitation, Odokawa took it and clenched it in his fist.

“It was good to meet you,” said Sagwan. “I hope we meet again.”

“Thanks. Take care of yourself.”

The seal waved and bounded over to the condo’s entrance. He fumbled his key into the lock, opened the door, and the building swallowed him. Odokawa peered up again at the balconies. The black bear had already gone.

He lit his cigarette, dragged deep, and then finally uncrumpled Sagwan’s tip. His eyes bugged out. The seal had given him a ten thousand-yen bill. Could be that he just didn’t understand money all that well, but he’d been very careful about counting out the fare. And it wasn’t like Odokawa could go into the building and return the tip.

He sighed and tucked the cash into his wallet as he returned to his car, its yellow paint a beacon in the misty street. He grinded out the cigarette under his heel before getting in, and before he went home, he returned to the hill overlooking the construction side and finished the pack. The noise of the cars behind him grew in volume and frequency as he smoked, as all the more ordinary people began their day. Odokawa thought that by now someone would have started building here, but the fog lay in cottony layers on the grounds beyond the guardrail, and he couldn’t see a thing.

Chapter Text

Seated as it was between the seaside and the mountains, the city often went through spates of windy weather, like a child caught in the middle of their parents’ quarrelling. On days like these, Odokawa kept his windows tightly shut, opened the doors as briefly as possible, and focused his routes on the upscale, sweeping streets. Normally picturesque, the glossy skyscrapers and department stores turned these roads into wind tunnels, forcing smaller creatures to take refuge in the grip of larger, more stolid ones (Odokawa had once spied a bull elephant stoically ferrying half a dozen weasels in his overcoat, their heads poking up around his collar like periscopes), or in public transportation. Such fares would all but hurl themselves bodily into his car, and behave themselves out of sheer gratitude.

He drove around Meteor Square and its glittering sea of lights, dust motes remaining stubbornly unmoved by the wind. He inched through traffic past high-class hotels whose beaten-brass doorways offered merest glimpses of the splendor beyond. Clean-swept cobblestone sidewalks now swept cleaner. Avenues lined with gingko trees still shedding their blooms. Odokawa felt more out of place in these neighborhoods than usual, though he did a brisk business, keeping conversation monosyllabic as he took his fares and their money. Whenever he opened the door for them, the moaning wind would kiss the back of his neck, and he’d squeeze the steering wheel to keep himself from shuddering.

Shortly after midnight, he came across a road that had been blocked off completely. Plastic barricades had been erected and lined by police who stood with traffic rods in hand and desperately bored expressions. It must have been a special occasion – he vaguely remembered there was some kind of catering hall here, and past the barricades he could see a cluster of limousines like streaks of tar. He drove around and moved on.

Another block, then two. The winds didn’t abate; pedestrians held their hats and coats in place, some of them laughing gaily as their clothes billowed around them. Even some of the smaller ones seemed to be enjoying it, at least if they were taking refuge in someone else’s hand or collar. There was precious little that could wipe the smile off these uptown people’s faces.

One of them walked apart, alone. A slender doe with a delicate, wandering step. She wore a coppery evening gown and, curiously, a man’s blazer that was far too big for her, and the breeze made both garments ripple under the gentle streetlights, making her appear somehow phantasmal. Her head turned as Odokawa drove past, and in his side mirror he saw her raise her hand to her chest, palm-out. Difficult to tell if she was flagging him down; the gesture was half-hearted, quickly abandoned. Nevertheless, he pulled over and opened the door. She got in, borne on the gale.

“Good evening,” she said.

“Evening.” He closed the door. “Where to?”

“I do not have any destination in mind. If possible, I would like you to simply drive.”

A contemplative moment passed.

“I’m not much of a tour guide, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Odokawa.

“You needn’t concern yourself with the scenery, or the traffic. I can pay whatever the fare may cost, I assure you.”

She sat in the center of the backseat, straight-backed, legs crossed at the ankles. Her voice was clipped and cultured, but whatever posh schooling she’d received hadn’t totally scoured her of personality; her words carried a scratchy, husky note, like she had a throatful of woodsmoke. Nestled between her collarbones was a red ruby pendant, small and bright as a blood droplet, that even Odokawa’s unpracticed eye could guess was worth a small fortune. Their gazes met in his rearview mirror, passing between them all manner of unasked questions.

Odokawa drove.

The woman remained motionless as he brought them away from the cultivated gaudiness of uptown. She didn’t flinch as he pulled onto the expressway and his speedometer ticked up. He drove to more familiar neighborhoods, closer to the mountains’ dark hulks, and when he took the off-ramp, she finally spoke again.

“This was the first time I’ve taken a cab of my own volition,” she said. “Did I do it properly?”

“You should raise your hand higher. It’s not like waving to a friend.”

“Yes, I thought as much. Forgive my inexperience. I’m more accustomed to limousines.”

That was an invitation for him to pry further. But he stayed quiet, until her frozen features gained a tinge of amusement. A smile so fleeting and faint that it might have been a trick of the light.

“This isn’t my jacket, in case you’re wondering,” she said.

“I figured.”

A scooter shot out of the road ahead of them, laden with food delivery. He hit the brakes, honked, continued on. The woman didn’t even flinch.

“You’re a good driver,” she remarked.

“It’s my job,” he said.

“May I ask your name?”

“Odokawa.”

No comments or questions, merely a nod. “Azuki, heiress to the Artemis Group. It’s a pleasure.”

And this was the answer he didn’t want to hear. Odokawa might not have been in tune with the workings of this city, but companies like the Artemis Group and the Horns Conglomerate were impossible to avoid – their names were mentioned at the back end of every other radio commercial, their brands in some discreet corner of every billboard. People like this weren’t supposed to travel unless accompanied by a retinue of men with dark suits, sunglasses, and limited senses of humor.

“Should you be here right now?” he asked.

“Direct. I can respect that,” she said. “You must have seen all the security posted at Candelabra Hall.”

“If you mean the cops and the barricades, then yes, I did.”

“The Artemis Group’s annual investors’ gala. A deeply tedious affair. I’ll admit the atmosphere became stifling. Enough so that I left in rather a hurry.” She plucked at the blazer’s hem. “Couldn’t even find something suitable to wear.”

“How did you get past the police?”

“I walked. It wasn’t hard. My absence has doubtless been noted, but you needn’t be concerned about reprisal from my chaperones. You’ve done nothing wrong. After all, a taxi driver is obligated to take passengers.”

They’d entered the backroads now, scarcely wide enough for two cars to pass one another. Odokawa headed back for the city lights in the distance. Regardless of what Azuki said, taking someone of her status out this way felt too much like abduction. He turned a corner and his headlights washed over a disused shrine, the nearby trees festooned with decaying ropes, a cairn of stones bearing some figure too quickly swallowed by the darkness to recognize or name.  Azuki didn’t turn her head, but those wide, dark eyes swiveled in their sockets, following these forgotten shapes.

“I don’t suppose you’ve kept up with the Artemis Group’s press releases,” she said.

“No. That stuff’s over my head.”

“Suffice it to say we’ve had some shakeups as of late.” A pause. “I was engaged to be married. Years ago.”

He said nothing as they passed through a corona of neon, the colors playing over Azuki’s sculpted form. A solemn beauty.

“It’s typical for animals of a certain status. Not all that different from marriages between kingdoms in older times, you could say. My fiancé was the Horns Conglomerate’s scion. You might have seen him on a magazine cover or two recently. He cuts a fine figure, though he always has looked a bit underfed, ever since the first days of our courting. If you could even call it that. There was never any love between us. I found that acceptable. Love is a shallow, transient thing. Far more so than the businesses upon which our arrangement depended.”

She closed her eyes and remained that way for several seconds, then opened them again. As though her lids were a curtain falling between acts of a play.

“He was also agreeable about it, at first. But he became more willful in his adolescence. That’s expected, for a male. Regardless of class or species, they all have some things in common. Even in my most optimistic projections, I knew there would always be challenges in our union. A certain distance. Long hours apart. Mistresses, even. But when we first tried to consummate our relationship…well, I won’t bother with the details. Suffice to say that it ended badly. I felt the beginning of something irreconcilable. Like ice cracking open beneath my feet.”

Back in the commercial districts, now. Odokawa led his car beside these ten thousand anonymous vehicles – sedans, cabs, trucks. If these drivers looked to the side and saw through his tinted windows, what would they see? The gleam of that ruby pendant, as if her heart was bleeding through her skin?

“It wasn’t long thereafter that I discovered he had feelings for someone else.” Her voice remained detached and low. “A female wolf, of no remarkable breed. Apparently, they connected in his school’s drama club. I’ve seen a few of her performances; she’s a passable actress. Perhaps her name will be more widespread in the future. Nevertheless. I was reasonable. I thought to allow him this dalliance. If he exercised his passions now, they would cause fewer complications after we were married. And he was passionate, around her. Scarcely recognizable from the cold and awkward buck I had known. But, after all, I hadn’t known him very well. Did she bring out this side of him? Or was it always there, and I simply hadn’t been attentive enough to see it? To draw it out during our time together?

“Eventually, I had to give up the lie. This was no mere dalliance. He’s not the type to do anything halfway. In fact, he spearheaded a number of business initiatives for cross-species products and services, using his own tryst with this wolf as an example. He even made me an accessory to his schemes. I introduced similar ideas to my own company, to pressure one side or the other into adopting them for wider use. It was simply good business sense. They’ve proven quite profitable. And my fiancé…he went on living.”

Another slow blink, the final act.

“Our engagement was formally annulled earlier this year,” said Azuki. “But the business goes on. The search began for another suitor. Only then did I realize that so much of my life had been determined by this male, unconsciously, regardless of distance. His company, his plans, even his rejection. Everything I’ve done has merely been part of his script. And now my role has ended. Those suffocating galas have become even more so now. I’ll confess, I’m not entirely sure what to do.”

Always the confessions. These hard-luck women pouring out their grief in his backseat. Talk about suffocation; the air in his car was thick with their words. And outside, the howling winds.

Azuki smirked. “Perhaps I’ll rent a car like this one and take my own trip. Outside this city, bound for parts unknown, where no one has any expectations of me.”

Odokawa pulled over.

There was nothing of interest here – a corner store, a small bank. An ATM commandeered by a young tigress with a stiff shoulder. Odokawa put the car in park and took his hands off the wheel. To her credit, Azuki’s expression still didn’t flicker.

“Is something the matter?” she asked.

“I can’t keep driving you without a destination, miss.”

Again that mirage of a smile. “I understand. In that case, please take me to the breakwater off Cano Boulevard.”

“What are you planning to do there?”

“Nothing foolish, don’t worry. I’d like to see the ocean. When we arrive, I’ll call my chaperones and have them pick me up. They must be terribly frantic by now.”

A long pause. Odokawa’s knuckles cracked around the gearshift. Then he pushed it forward and set off once more.

Cano Boulevard was on the other side of town. He took the expressway back the way he’d come and pulled off past Meteor Square, making sure to give that catering hall a wide berth as he moved through midtown, headed west. It was almost two-thirty now. The crowds had begun to thin and the wind was unabating. The forecast on his radio promised clear skies and calmer weather by noon. Azuki didn’t speak again, though at times the fingers curled in her lap would knot about each other in anxious patterns.

The breakwaters along the city’s west end were numerous, mostly for the benefit of sea animals; most of their condominiums were located along this coastline. No one who lived on land had much of a reason to come here, meaning that this territory was unfamiliar to him. They were going to a dead-end road, and so traffic became nonexistent as Odokawa continued on. The buildings became shorter, humbler, more rustic. He pulled off Cano, turned, turned again. Beneath the radio, the sound of waves could now be heard. It made his heartbeat snarl up.

The wind had roused the ocean. It smashed against the barriers erected on the breakwater and its foam and spume rose skyward like innumerable grasping fingers. At last Odokawa hit the brake. He couldn’t bring himself to drive any closer.

“Thank you,” said Azuki. “The fare, please.”

“Do you know this spot?” he asked.

“So to speak. When I was much younger, my father had business with some real estate developers here. They were to discuss living space for the seas. I tagged along with him, and wandered off, watching the water. It was one of the few times in my childhood that I was able to slip away from my handlers. They weren’t pleased when they caught me, of course, but I still treasure those memories. Now, the fare?”

“¥28,623.”

She withdrew a small handbag from the blazer’s depths. “I hope thirty thousand is acceptable.”

“Remember to pay with exact change next time.”

Azuki looked up sharply, blinked, and then chuckled – she had a pleasant laugh, trailing out in that smoky voice. Odokawa took the money she offered.

“It might cause some awkwardness if you’re seen with me, so I’ll wait until you leave to place the call,” she said. “Thank you again for your assistance.”

Odokawa reached to his dash, but instead of opening the passenger door, he turned off the radio. Silence fell – a silence broken only by the wind, and the waves, and the idling of his engine. Around them, these hacked-down buildings stared out through the blind eyes of their windows. No streetlamps here, and the moon was smothered. The cab’s headlights provided the only illumination.

He said, “You could do it, you know.”

“Do what?” she said, barely audible over the engine.

“Drive away,” said Odokawa. “Get behind the wheel and go to the edge of town, and further than that. Where there aren’t even any streetlights to show the way. Don’t hesitate. Push the engine as far as it can go. If you do that, then maybe you’ll come out the other side of that darkness and into somewhere new. A place you don’t know, and where you won’t be known by anyone. But you have to be careful.” His eye hung in the rearview mirror, unblinking. “Because you won’t be able to turn back. And more importantly, the change you find might not be the one you’re looking for. There’s someone waiting for you at the end of every road. Someone you can’t escape from. No matter where you go or how fast you drive, they’ll be there. Do you understand?”

Azuki didn’t reply. Her fixed stare was pinned wide now. Deer in the headlights. After a moment, Odokawa opened the door for her.

“Goodnight,” he said. “Don’t forget anything in the car.”

She stayed there a second longer before getting out. The road here was riven with cracks, a poor fit for her expensive heels, so she moved with a delicate, wandering step. She didn’t give the car another glance as she approached the end of the road, the blazer draped around her shoulders like a cloak, its empty sleeves flapping in the wind as if waving him goodbye.

Odokawa also didn’t leave right away. He watched her stand in place and wondered what she might be thinking as she eyed the water’s turbulent surface. The wind suddenly picked up to a shriek and her coat almost flew off her shoulders but she still remained there, motionless and undaunted, even when the ocean surged and smashed against the coastline. Odokawa’s headlights caught that geyser of spray and made the droplights shine pale as the stars, Azuki lost amidst these alien constellations.

Chapter Text

On the night it finally happened, the rains had come and gone and the air had just begun to bite. A night like any other. The city ensnared within its own blind circuit. The skies were clouded over and the same tarry black as the roads, the roads he navigated six or seven nights a week now, not even bothering with the illusion of rest. The little stereo in his apartment was now discolored with a fine frosting of dust; he hadn’t tuned into the rakugo station for weeks. Instead he drifted through his car stereo’s own senseless babble, the metronomic click of his blinkers, the patter of raindrops and the squeak of his windshield wipers, the engine’s relentless thrum. He seldom saw the same passenger twice, and the ones he did recognize didn’t recognize him in turn, or at least didn’t call attention to it. He took them to whatever destinations they provided and took their money and went off his own way, continuing through his routine, this unrelenting loop.

Once or twice a week he’d go back to the hill over the vacant lot, waiting for something to happen there. But the long-awaited construction never appeared; he cast his cigarette ends down into that same black sea. It got to the point where he didn’t want to see the place in daylight, in case there really was nothing there, just a yawning dark hole over the guardrails.

He was on his way back from one such trip, trawling the roads not too far from where he’d picked up that fox with her melancholy woodcut face. It was just past midnight. The side roads were mostly empty and he took it slow, eyeing the sidewalks for potential fares. This wasn’t a partygoing district; passengers here would likely be night-shift workers or worn-out barflies too tired or broke to keep drinking into the dawn hours. Quiet, the way he liked. And then he saw her.

She walked through the intermittent darkness between streetlamps, handbag over her shoulder, head slightly bowed. Her jacket and skirt were an unexciting tan color and her neck arose from her blouse like a streak of chalk, loose curls of wool spilling free. For a moment Odokawa couldn’t even hear the engine run. But he drew closer and saw that she was still the wrong shape, two stubby horns near-swallowed by the wool atop her head. Nevertheless, she saw him and raised her arm, and he watched that gesture like someone staring into the barrel of a gun, waiting for the muzzle flash.

He pulled over and let her in. The girl angled her neck so that her head could pass through his doorway, and then settled into the backseat, purse in her lap. She moved with an easy grace despite the car’s awkward confinement.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Riosen Avenue on District 7, please.”

Odokawa entered the address and set off, pulling back onto the main roads. The city’s glitter forced its way into the car. She winced a bit at the sudden explosion of color.

“Getting colder,” he remarked. The steering wheel creaked as he turned.

“It is. At least the rainy season’s finally done.”

“I’m not a fan of it, either.”

She blinked. “Really? I mean, it’s just surprising, since you’re, erm…”

“I know. I’m strange that way.” He paused at a Yield sign. At the end of the road, a stoplight hung. “Could I get your name, miss?”

“Els.” She didn’t seem bothered by the question. “How about you, mister…?”

“Odokawa.” That familiar shift in expression. “Yeah, it’s not common.”

She smiled a little, grateful that he’d thrown her a line. “I didn’t want to assume. It’s been a little while since I’ve met any sea animals.”

“Don’t worry about it. I thought you were an alpaca at first.”

The smile widened. “I’ve been getting that a lot. Especially since I grew out my wool. My horns are so stubby they get lost in the stuff.” She idly twisted one curl around her finger. “I really need to get it cut soon. Can’t seem to find the time.”

They came to the stoplight and it flashed red. Odokawa coasted to a stop. “Usually I see kids your age out in groups this time of night. Working late?”

“Studying late, actually. My plan's to go to med school. Training to be a nurse.” Els sighed. “It keeps me busy, all right.”

Odokawa stared into the stoplight’s gleam and imagined that single point of red drilled into his eye. There was a spreading numbness in him; he could no longer feel the steering wheel’s contours beneath his hands, or the engine’s rumble beneath his feet. A resignation. The hammer had dropped, the gunbarrel flashed. This bullet was bound to find him someday.

He said, “There was a lot of traffic on the main roads tonight. If you want, I can take a detour. It’s out of the way but should save us fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“Traffic?” Els asked, ears drooping. “It’s a weird time of night for it…”

“It happens sometimes. But it’s up to you.”

The light would change any second now. She cast a glance out the window at that pulsing kaleidoscope of storefronts. The handbag distended beneath her fingertips. Just as the wheel did beneath Odokawa’s.

“If you think it’s a good idea,” she said at last, and the light turned green.

Odokawa flicked his turn signal and moved off the boulevard, back into the gloomier spaces. The asphalt grew rougher as he guided them onto the side roads, then the back roads, where the streetlamps were few and the lit buildings fewer still. This was how it was – the city’s lights brightest in its chaotic, cacophonic heart, growing dimmer as you moved to the disused spaces, and then to the full darkness at its edge, beyond where even the highway lights could shine.

He’d taken this route many times since coming here, tracing the echoes of places he used to know. The taxi drove over a small bridge beneath which inky water flowed sluggish as blood. It crept through a suburb where not even the cicadas could be heard. In the rearview mirror, Els grew restless, her own gaze pinned wide and helpless to this alien scenery where no one else was there to look back. He could see her struggling not to look at him, the wicked tusks jutting from his lip. Her fingers pawed at her handbag, no doubt resisting the urge to take out her phone and check the traffic. She didn’t want to discover that he’d lied.

“I’m not sure if I can cover the fare,” she said. Her voice was faint, piano-wire tight.

“It’s fine. Tonight was busy. I’ll give you a discount.”

“You can do that?”

“Sometimes.”

They snaked along a cliffside road from which the city’s eastern edge could be seen. The mountains were jagged fractures in space, the sky an open pit. Both the speedometer and Odokawa’s heartbeat remained steady.

“Are you from the countryside?” he asked.

She flinched at his voice. “No. I was born here. Why?”

“Just a guess. A bad one, it turns out.” He gently eased off the gas. Taking every second that he could. “You said you were headed for med school. Are you going to pay for it yourself?”

“No, my parents are.” Her wide, wet herbivore’s eyes jittered back and forth. At once reassured by the triviality of these questions, and anxious as to where they might lead.

“That’s good. Loans are trouble.”

“That’s what they said. I think they were relieved that I decided to go this route, honestly. I was actually a choreographer in high school. But there’s not much of a career in dance.”

The road opened back up; the city center could be seen again in the distance. As those lights approached, the tension drained from Els’ pose like an unwound spring. Odokawa pulled his gaze away from the pearlescent gleam of her, adrift inside his car.

“The hours must really be tough, if they’re keeping you this late,” he said. “Not much time for a social life, I assume.”

She smiled weakly. “Pretty much.”

“You seeing anyone?” He delivered the question casually, like a needle in the arm, but she still stammered a bit before answering.

“Oh! No, not really. There was someone, and there was…I mean, there was going to be someone, and there was this one boy in my drama club who seemed nice, but not the same…” She sighed. “I lost you, didn’t I?”

“It’s alright.”

“I haven’t dated since high school,” she said. “I don’t even remember his name. But this was this other boy – an alpaca, actually – who had a crush on me. But then he…well, he died.”

Her words were almost drowned by the engine. Their destination wasn’t far.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You probably read about it in the papers at some point. Devouring. After that I sort of hung it up. There was this tiger in my drama club who seemed interested, but I never let it go anywhere. And after him, no one.” She shut her eyes, laid her head against the window’s cool glass. “I never knew about that boy’s crush, is the thing. Not until after he was gone. Sometimes it feels like I’m punishing myself for it.”

“Doesn’t sound like it was your fault.”

“I know that. But, there it is.” She shrugged, opened her eyes again. “It’s funny. I’ve never told anyone this before.”

“I hear that a lot. It’s a taxi thing.”

“You must be used to it by now.” She watched the sidewalk pass by. “Just like I’m getting used to this.”

“You can get used to just about anything,” said Odokawa. “But that doesn’t mean it’s right.”

Els turned back to him, puzzled. Odokawa’s phone stated that they were less than five minutes from their destination. He kept driving as he talked, his body moving through these familiar gestures, actions scored into him by years of lonesome nights.

“Don’t worry. You’re still young. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.” He spoke in withering deadpan. “I bet that’s what you’d usually hear if you told this to someone, right? It’s a load of crap. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that this will become any easier. You want to be alone, that’s fine. But if you don’t, then there isn’t going to come a time when you get to tell yourself, ‘this was worth it.’ You won’t be able to take it back.”

“I’m not sure what you-”

“The things you regret never go away,” Odokawa went on. “They just keep growing, until they eventually become all that you are. Your life isn’t ahead of you. It’s here, now. So you better decide if it’s one that you want to live, before you get so used to it that you’re not able to change.”

She sat rigid, that fine neck straight as a marble pillar, mouth slightly open like she’d been poleaxed. The car slowed, pulled over.

“We’re here,” said Odokawa.

Els tried several times to speak before she finally got the words out. “How much do I owe you?”

“Let’s call it an even twenty-five hundred.”

The actual fare was nearly twice that, but Odokawa didn’t care. Els dug the cash out of her purse and he took it and opened the passenger door. She left the car with an uncertain, wobbling step, as though expecting to fall through the world. Odokawa waited a moment, then a moment longer, and finally cranked the window down and called out:

“Excuse me, miss.”

Els turned in place and half-jogged back to the car, leaning in close enough for Odokawa to feel her breath. “What is it? Did I forget something in the car?”

In this light he could see her plain. Eyes the color of beaten brass, wool slightly yellowed like old ivory, the sharpened curvatures of her horns. Odokawa saw her features shift to confusion, then to concern.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

What did his own face show, he wondered. What did it betray.

“It’s nothing. Sorry.” He turned away, took the wheel. “Goodnight, Els.”

He drove off without bothering to roll the window up and the wind striking the side of his face made him shudder all over. This time he didn’t watch the mirrors at all, and so he didn’t see Els reach out to the taxi, didn’t see her take a few hesitant steps forward as if intending to run after and intercept it at the next corner or stoplight. But Els’s arm lowered, and she turned away just as the taxi turned off the avenue – two diverging paths that would not intersect again.

*             *             *

Odokawa returned to the east side, headed home. His apartment building was a rundown three-story box around which even smaller buildings crowded like invasive fungus; trashcans and scrap metal formed impenetrable walls in the adjacent alleys. He parked his cab and switched off the engine, then sat in the darkness for a little while, hands on his knees. Then he took his cigarettes from the glove compartment and stepped outside.

His room was on the third floor, accessible by an outdoor staircase half-eaten by rust. Odokawa took the steps carefully, in case any of them suddenly bent under his bulk. All the other rooms’ shades were drawn; through a few doorways he could hear the murmur of television sets or stereos, but despite the shabbiness of this area, there was seldom any late-night excitement. A weariness that sank into the very architecture.

What else could he have possibly said?

He could have told her that, while one could bear just about anything after a while, sometimes there came days which tested the limits of your endurance. Days when you were exhausted by the stupidity of people you knew and the lies of people you thought you’d known. When your property was invaded by some scowling rodent of a cop, and a stranger leveled a gun at the back of your head and told you to drive and threatened to leave you in a bathtub to drown. When one more idiot dragged you to some ritzy place you never asked for or wanted to be, where your growing migraine would be ripped wide open by a sudden gunshot, and you would flee through the back door with burning lungs and a too-clear understanding of your cowardice, to be rewarded with the sight of a hole blown in the side of your car, glass twinkling on the backseat’s upholstery like starry skies.

Maybe, as you return home, your phone buzzes again and again with messages that you’d refuse to answer. And maybe some dark tether inside of you would finally break, and you’d instead turn off the path and onto the highway, your mind gone placid and thoughtless as the engine’s hum as you drove out of the city and onto these wide black roads where the streetlights stand sentinel. And the wind through your broken window would lash at the back of your neck and the lights would strobe behind your eyes as you pressed the gas pedal down until it kissed the mat and the engine screamed in response, and you’d lose yourself in that chill, in these sounds, the whistle and the rumble and the roar, until even the streetlights went out and your headlights showed only a blackness as complete as the bottom of the sea, and you would emerge from that caul of dark in an unfamiliar place, with people familiar in all the wrong ways, and yourself changed but not changed at all, in this same life, behind this same wheel, with home now far outside any border and unknown to any map.

He could have told her to make her choices wisely, because there were no second chances or new beginnings, not really. You couldn’t escape from yourself.

Odokawa fumbled his key into the lock and opened the door. His apartment was a single ten-mat room, the kitchenette seldom used, the futon distended by his sleepless thrashing. It had one window that offered a view mostly obscured by the taller buildings nearby, but between their silhouettes, like prison bars, he could glimpse the mountains. He closed the door behind him without turning on the lights and went to a small end table in one corner, where his stereo rested. Carefully, he wiped away the dust, turned it on, and twisted the knobs until the static bled away. The soft sound of rock n’ roll filled the air.

He pulled open the window and got out his lighter. Its flame caught and leapt, a single bloody point in the surrounding murk. Odokawa placed a cigarette between his tusks, lit up, and inhaled.

Behind him, the stereo played on, its sound merging with that of the surrounding traffic. The wind picked up and snatched away the cloud of smoke that Odokawa exhaled, carried it over the city streets where cars continued in their unrelenting pace. The smoke held its shape a second longer, and then surrendered. It fractured to wisps, was rendered invisible, and continued onward, where it would finally disappear into the darkness on the edge of town.