#and like every tall ginger adjacent man i see

[carrotspirits]

Getting into wolfstar has really fucked up my taste in men. Now I'm into like, exclusively remus lupin lookalikes, like they either have a stupid mustache or look like James Acaster. or Sirius Black types which is just any guys with long dark hair like honestly it's out of control.

[slasherrabbitmadness]

Victorian DILF Brahms x Female Reader

Slasher Victorian AU series Featuring Brahms Heelshire.

Divider by https://firefly-graphics.tumblr.com/

Series: Don't forget who you belong to.

Chapter 1

Prompt: 79

Brahms taps his foot under his large, dark oak desk. He taps his pencil on a stack of papers, legal documents for his clients, ranging from the mundane like Mr. Krueger complaining about his neighbor Mr. Voorhees, ranging from 'standing there, menacingly' to ' He breathed in my direction.' To the extreme as an abuse case against a young vulnerable girl named Carrie.

Brahms pinches the bridge of his nose, the paper in front of him the most important and he was to not be paid for solving the problem. He picks up the paper to re-read the sections that stuck out the most.

We are advising you on your son, Lawrence, we regret to inform you of his wild, ruckus-filled behavior. We understand that young boys have a degree of tomfoolery to them but he, Lawrence, is turning out to be one who fancies himself an urchin.

Brahms grunts, eyes scanning the page,

He recently had put candy, that was similar in appearance to the headmistresses medication.

Brahms chuckles,

He also has set up a boxing club. He charges the boys a pence a piece for admittance and takes bets against the two boys fighting.

Brahms bit his lip, his cheeks turning pink. He clears his throat as a co-worker glances his way.

His face fell as he re-read the final line.

If these behaviors fail to be corrected over the upcoming break, we recommend a crammer school for young Lawrence.

Brahms slams the paper down on the desk, he leans back in his chair, gripping the arm of the chair, "Crammer school" he seethes. Brahms made a vow to Gerti, to never let their son end up at such a place, he was to be a gentleman and a gentleman comes from a gentlemanly background. Not a Crammer school for the slow and sluggish, a Gentleman's brute offspring to be fed into the army for slaughter.

"Any plans for the night?"

Brahms snaps his head towards his co-worker, Mr. Bates.

"Any plans for the night, Brahms? Taking the maid out for another moving picture?" Mr. Bates grins and nudges Brahms's shoulder with his elbow.

"Ah, no, she's been," Brahms twirls the pencil in his fingers, "Busy."

Brahms glances at his desk, the picture of his late wife and son.

Mr. Bates's eyes follow Brahms's, "You know, I'm sure Gerti doesn't mind. Lawrence adored her, yes, I'm sure that boy is dying for a new one," He rests his clammy hand on Brahms's shoulder, "After all, a boy's best friend is his mother."

Brahms recoils, "By God, Norman, listen to yourself," Brahms brushes off Norman's hand as he stands, "A Boy needs friends his own age," He grabs his important papers, stacking them loosely, he yanks his briefcase from under the desk to slam it on his desk, "Not a mother as a friend."

You gleefully prepare the ginger beer, the old beige and brown bottles embedded with the Heelshire name. You scan the current bottle in your hands, "1771" you read aloud, "My goodness."

You delicately place the plates on the table, humming as you admired the beautiful set. "This costs more than one week's wage." Another tentative glance, "Which is why..." You twirl in the drawing-room, "I'm getting another job!"

Your mind raced back to last week...

The carriage ride was bumpy, every bump from a pothole to a large rock made your already uneasy stomach flip.

"Almost there, miss!" The coach called out to you, "Sorry for the ride, Daniel has made a donation to get the road fix, beautiful ain't it?"

"Yes, that's very kind of him." You opened the flyer in your hand, you read the bold letters over the top,

Apple Pickers wanted weekend work. Only at Daniel Candy's Farm

"Tis nice of him to hire those with no work history or those already with a job, ain't it?"

"Yes, that's very kind of him." You repeated. You brought your attention to the upcoming estate, the large white manor stood out among the hues of greens, from the grass to the pine and oak trees in a neat line leading to the entrance of the manor.

The coachman helped you out of the carriage, "Now, miss, memba' to curtsey and all that."

"Thank you, and thank you for being so kind."

"I only hire the best."

Your breath caught in your throat, eye bugged out to the tall man who appeared to appear as if from nowhere. You looked up, the source of the voice, the deep baritone still carried itself within you.

"My coachman, I only hire the best, shall you prove me right?" His voice was like thick honey, his onyx eyes were warm, his hand was large with not a hint of labor upon it.

You froze, swallowed a hesitant hello, hand reached for his, "It's is very nice to meet you," His hand melded in yours, his thumb rubbed the back of your hand in small delicate circles, "Mr. Robitaille"

"Daniel works just fine." He flashed a bright smile, his eyes twinkled as they stared into yours.

"Daniel," you bite your lip, "It's nice to meet you, Daniel." and curtseyed.

He led you along a light dirt path adjacent to the abundant apple trees. The birds in the trees sang a beautiful melody, they danced between the trees, the songs becoming more jovial as you and Daniel walked.

"You'll be working for the next three weeks, Thursdays," He waved to one of the workers picking apples, "Fridays," He nodded at a male with a wheelbarrow full of apples, "and Saturdays." He placed his large hand on your upper back, "If that is alright with Mr. Heelshire?"

You squeaked at the mention of Brahms, "Ah, yes,"

"Hesitation my dear, would he not be so accepting of a free woman working where she pleases?"

You shook your head, tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear, "It's not that, he just..."

"He doesn't know." Daniel finished for you with a knowing laugh.

You shied away from his words, eyes took in the mass of workers, happily picking apples, chatting with one other, the made it look easy being up twenty feet high on the ladder to pick the apples.

"Pray tell," Daniel removed his hand from your upper back, "Why do you need this job?"

"Well, money." You said earnestly. "I could use the extra money is all."

"For family?" He asked, accepting an apple from one of his workers. He admired the deep red color, "A gift for Mr. Heelshire?"

You wrung your hands together. You chocked in a breath, "It's private."

Daniel stopped, a low chuckle as you had noticed he stopped. He grinned as you fiddled with your fingers, face turned to the ground, a coy smile over your delicate features.

"What's his name?" Daniel stepped to you, his baritone sent a shiver down your spine. "I'd like to hear it be spoken from such shy lips." Daniel rolled the apple in his hand, nudged it towards you, gesturing for you to take it.

You hesitated, your hands shook as you tentatively grabbed the apple. You stared at the red fruit, the color deep and rich, "His name is Daniel Cain, well, Dan, he goes by Dan."

A startled laugh erupted from Daniel. You jumped, eyes darted to the workers around you, their eyes fell upon Daniel. "Do tell, does this Dan Cain happen to be studying at University of London?"

You stammered out, "Yes,"

"How admirable. So tell me, a gift for the young man?"

"No, it's." You roll the apple in your hand, you looked up at Daniel, "A new dress, I wish to look beautiful, well," You grimaced, "At least while with him."

Daniel frowned, his hand reached for yours, you gasped as he held firm, "Pardon for being cliche, but you are already beautiful, How your hair shines in the sun, to how the sun lights up your eyes, your timid nature is quite endearing." He winked at you.

"Come," Daniel gestured, "I shall introduce you to Carrie, she'll be your site boss for the next three weeks."

You jump from the front door slams open, Brahms shouting as he entered, "Please come to the foyer, my love."

You cringe, the nickname spills so easily from him, saying it like it was second nature, "Yes, Sir, be there soon."

"This instant, my love. I need you here."

Your eyes linger on the half-set table, too busy with your dancing and reminiscing to fully finish your job. "Coming, Sir!"

You walk out of the drawing-room, feet picking up pace as you make your way down the narrow hall, the green carpet embroidered with gold string, bought in Egypt, fairly recently. The walls a dark wood, matching the soil in the garden. The small lamps light up the hallway in a yellow hue. The walls lined with portraits of Heelshires past, their eyes unnerved you with every quick walkthrough you made through the hallway.

Brahms sighs and lets his shoulders relax as you step into view. He removes his jacket, tossing it on the coat rack, "Are the Victorian sandwiches done? Is the Ginger Beer ready?" He asks while loosening his tie, his adam's apple bobbed, "Hm?"

You wince "I was a little distracted, I'm terribly sorry, Sir."

"Brahms, we've been over this, my love, you may call me Brahms."

"Sorry, Brahms." You choke out his name, "Is there anything you need of me at this moment?" You place a warm smile over your face, eyes looking at him as he took off his custom-made shoes.

"Is it so bad for a man to want a woman to greet him when he's come after a hard day's work?" His bright smile made rock in place, heart thumping rapidly in your chest. "You know how good it feels to see your warm face as I get home?"

"I can't say I do." You answer earnestly.

"Do you not feel a sense of joy as I come home?"

You squint your eyes, gaze adverting his, you cough "Yes, I do." You look back at him, "I am simply your maid, Si-Brahms." You gesture to him to follow you down the hall, "I feel great joy when I see you come home to your...home."

"Our home. This place is just as much mine as it is yours." Brahms steps in front of you, gesturing for you to follow him. "You sleep here, eat here, are here every weekend..." He glances at the paintings in the dimly lit hall, "I mean, you must like it if you are here in your free time."

You flinch, nails scratching in the back of your hand, "Uhm, Yes."

Brahms reaches the table as he stares back at you, his eyes narrow, "Sit." He pulls out the ornate chair, his hand padding down the expensive leather, "Enjoy lunch with me."

You smooth your dress from behind as you sit, scooting up as he pushed you closer to the table. Brahms rounded the table, a jovial smile as he sat himself across from you, delicately placing a napkin on his lap.

"Now, how has your day been?" He starts, shoving a victoria sandwich in his mouth, rolling his eyes in ecstasy, "Mhm, my love this is delicious, you outdid yourself."

You giggle, shaking your head, "No, Brahms it's nothing. Just same old same old."

"You sell yourself too short." Brahms clears his throat, "This weekend," He wiped his hands of crumbs, "My son is coming home, he hasn't been excelling at school like he should be," He took a sip of the ginger beer, an approving smile after he gulped, "So I shall be sending him to a nearby crammer school."

You nod, "I'm sure in the end it'll work out for the best." He sips the beer, letting the taste linger on your tongue, "After all, probably be for the best he comes back home. I can imagine boarding school can be isolating after a death," You froze, eyes wide in panic as you glance at Brahms, "I'm so sorry." You place down the glass of beer.

Brahms laughs, the corner of his lips pulling up, "No no, don't be sorry, it's very true." He sips again, "Very true. Ever since Gerti crossed onto the other side, little Lawrence has been lost." He coughs, "He'll be more than thrilled to be home, hid loving father, his second favourite lady ready to greet him with open arms."

"This weekend?" you ask, "This Saturday?"

Brahms stills, his eyes squint, "Yes, I already said this weekend."

Your throat constricts, a burning sensation spreads throughout you. You look away, eyes catching on the ornate couch.

Brahms reaches his hand out to you, his thumb running on the back of your hand, "My love, what?" He raises his brow, leaning in, "What's the problem with Saturday?"

"I have something private to attended to." You state, eyes falling back to his, "I won't be here to greet Lawrence." You swallow, the burning searing through you, "I'm terribly sorry."

Brahms stood up, one stride and he was at your side, "Tell, why won't you be there? It mustn't be family matters, they live awfully far away, days by train." He leans in, "Something in town perhaps?"

You nod with a smile, "I shall be away this coming Friday and days thereafter, a flower picking job just a town over, the lady of the manor is allowing me room and board, very sweet of her." You sip more ginger beer, hands shaking as you brought the glass to your chapped lips.

Brahms places his large hand on your upper back, "Flower picking job?"

"Yes."

"What flower?"

"Excuse me?"

"What flower are you picking?" Brahms leans in closer to you, his other hand resting on the table, "I'm sure you know."

You grin at him, "Narcissus, beautiful flowers." You gulp back more ginger beer.

"That's a nice flower. Beautiful." He leans in closer, his eyes holding a critical glint. "Pray tell, how will you be picking a flower out of season?" He smiles down at you, licking his teeth, his hand clenches around yours. Your mouth agape, breath held. You choke as he leans closer to you, "I know apples are in season."

The air felt thick, the air from your lungs fell from your mouth in rapid breaths, the grandfather clock ticked, each one was felt in your spine. You jump as the grandfather clock thunders out his five pm chime.

You breathe in, "It's only for three weekends," You start, "No more than that."

Brahms chuckles, his fingers pressing into your back, "No more than that...why?" He rests his elbow on the table, chin in his palm, "Why the work when I could easily up your pay."

Your lips in a tight line, eyes dry, bugging out as you stare into his, "Savings." You lie.

Brahms slides his arm around your shoulder, his bicep flexing on the back of your neck, his hand running up and down your arm. He leans into your ear, "If by savings, do you mean Dan?"

[sleeperswakewriting]

jealousy

Prompt from: velokomi

So, how about Petra giving wayyy too much attention to Eren, Hanji ,Oulo and Erwin and Levi gets jealous for all them?

Rating: G

Word count: 1.4k

Eren

He’s just a kid, is the first thing that came to Levi’s mind when he first saw Petra doting on him. The ruffling of the hair, the way she would go out of her way to make him a cup of tea in the evening and how they would chat by the fireplace--it was so characteristically Petra that Levi knew he had nothing to be upset about. After all, she had a reputation for taking new recruits under her wing, making them feel welcome and at home, and even though the boy they had in front of them was a literal monster, that wasn’t stopping Petra.

Except he was jealous because evening tea times were meant for the two of them, in his office, filling out paperwork or merely going over the drills they ran that day.

But, he supposed he owed the kid some slack, after all, he lost his mother and with Petra being the only female member of their team, he wasn’t surprised Eren was drawn to her.

He decided to let it go, keeping his thoughts to himself because he knew what Petra would say if he brought it up--Captain, you’re being so silly! And throw him the soft smile she always did when it was just the two of them.

Hange

“Sorry Captain, Hange asked me to help them out with some experiments later! I’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast?” Petra chirped, knowing that Levi’s request to see her later was not strictly professional and she was under no obligation to abide by him. However, the rejection still stung, and Petra didn’t even notice as she gave him a quick salute as she left the mess hall, leaving Levi alone, staring idly into his shitty soup for the night.

Don’t be that guy, he chastised himself, but his legs followed the motions before he could help himself as he cleaned his tray and followed Petra to Hange’s lab. I’ll just say I needed four-eyes for something.

The door to Hange’s lab was cracked an inch open, and before Levi was about to barge in, he heard giggling from Petra.

“I’m so glad we’re spending some one on one time, sometimes it gets stifling with the guys all the time! What do you think of this color?”

Levi knew when to take a cue when he heard one, and he dejectedly walked away from the room, back to his office.

Oluo

Imitation is the highest form of flattery is something Erwin once told him, and Levi had to fucking disagree with that. On most days, he just ignored Oluo’s strange antics and pretended not to throw the man off by saying something off handed like an apple a day keeps the titans away just to see him eat as many apples as he could the following morning, but today was different.

As Levi descended the steps, he could have sworn he felt a vein pop when he walked down to their common room and spied Petra tying Oluo’s cravat for him and clucking at him like a mother hen.

“Can you sit still, Oluo?!” She barked, nearly choking him in the process as Oluo bit his tongue, but they both froze as they saw their Captain in the hallway. And if Levi didn’t know any better which he did, Petra was turning a light shade of red as she quickly unraveled the cravat.

“Oh hi Captain! You’re up early.”

Levi looked between them, glaring daggers and he nonchalantly shrugged. “I’m hungry.”

Erwin

It wasn’t often Levi went into town, he usually took a twice a month trip to replenish on his favorite teas and pick up some cleaning supplies that were out of the Scouts’ budget. Today was one of those days, and the chilly winter air was in its full force as he entered the general store. A couple of other scouts could be seen, some murmuring and buzzing from the Christmas excitement around the corner, and Levi sighed, hoping that nothing he wanted was out of stock since he didn’t fancy another trip into town.

The general store was large, mostly due to being located by one of the Scout outposts and Levi weaved his way between the crowds, making his way for the tea section at the back of the shop.

As soon as he arrived in the back room, Levi immediately halted in his steps and growled out a what the hell as he noticed a familiar tall blond and ginger standing side by side, holding jars of tea between them. They spoke between hushed voices, and Levi felt a hot fury wash over him as Petra cutely crinkled her nose as she sniffed one jar and handed it to Erwin.

“What the fuck is going on?” He finally spat, not being able to contain himself, and Petra jumped, eyes going wide while Erwin merely looked up in amusement.

“Hi Levi,” he acknowledged, screwing the cap of the jar back on. “I ran into Petra, we were just talking about you.”

Levi quirked an eyebrow, knowing when Erwin was bullshitting because it was clear that between the two of them that Erwin was holding Petra’s shopping bag, a simple burlap one but noticeably hers by her initials stitched into the handles.

Petra’s face was glowing red and she immediately took her bag from Erwin and whispered something into his ear, with the taller man having to lean over to hear her. Levi clenched his fist, wondering when Petra and the commander got so chummy they went on outings together, but Petra sidled up next to Levi as she took her hand in his.

“The commander has to go back now, is it okay if I join you?” She asked sweetly, thumbing his wedding band between their interlocked fingers.

Levi grunted and pulled her closer, but as he disappeared into the adjacent room, he couldn’t help but notice the shit eating grin Erwin had plastered onto his face.

Levi

It was Christmas morning, and while Levi was never the one for much sleep, he found himself rudely awoken to a poking in his side as Petra climbed over him in the bed. It was barely dawn in their room and he mumbled why she was getting up so early. It was cold from the lack of fire in the shared hearth, and Petra planted a kiss to his forehead as she padded out of the room. Levi paid no mind as he rolled onto his stomach, savoring the heat Petra left but soon found himself awoken again as a weight sat on his back.

“Happy Birthday, Levi!” Petra sang, pulling the covers off of him and peppered kisses across his face.

His eyes opened in realization, forgetting that it was Christmas and also his birthday, and he remembered that they were making a trip into town to see Petra’s parents for the holiday.

“Mmmpfh,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair and noted the medium sized box Petra placed on their bed. It was wrapped in red and green with a large golden bow, and a soft smile came to his lips at the decadence.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” he said, already undoing the bow and carefully unlatching the tape that held the patterned paper together.

“Of course I did,” Petra replied, sitting next to him and watched with nervous excitement as he undid the box.

A neatly folded green cravat sat in the box, followed by three samples of tea bags, and Levi felt his throat tighten. This was their first gift exchange as husband and wife, and the thoughtfulness that exuded from it made his head spin.

“Oluo helped me with the cravat length, I think it’s a bit fancier than the ones you wear every day, and Hange picked out the color. And the commander helped me with the tea since I wanted to get you something you haven’t tried before. Eren had the idea to wrap it nicely, like nobles do, so we went into town to find something special.” She paused, playing with her hands in her lap. “Do you like it? I know it’s different but I wanted today to be special since we’re also seeing my parents--”

Levi set the gift down and pulled Petra in for a hungry kiss, his hands wrapping around her waist in a tender hug.

“I love it,” he said softly. And then with more confidence, he whispered into her ear, “I love you.”

[lost-in-the-80s]

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Pairing: Axl Rose x (fem) reader

Words: 2,546k

Requested by: @sugwinter

Summary: You, one of the most prestigious actresses in Hollywood, meet Axl Rose at a party and the two of you just can’t stay away from each other. 

A/N: I’m sorry Tarantino, but the title fitted too well for me not to use it. Thanks for the request, darling! I LOVED this concept!! I hope you like it 💗

Note: This is the second version of it, since I didn’t like the first one. Tell me what you guys thought of it :)

Tag list: @roger-taylors-car @ladieswttda @teasid @metalheartofgold @slashscowboyboots @ginny-rose-sixx @rumoured-whispers @normatural​ add yourself to my tag list :)

Once upon a time in Hollywood, there was a smart young woman named Y/N. She had always been ambitious and very determined so she knew she wanted to be an actress at a very young age.

When she was 16 she started running after her dreams. Coming from a poor neighborhood in Los Angeles, she’d take the bus every day after school and go to Hollywood, distributing resumes at every set she could find, hoping to get any type of work that could bring her closer to her dream.

The chance came a few months later when she was hired to be the director’s assistant. Her work consisted of getting coffee, organizing his table, staying with him while filming and distributing the scripts to all the cast members.

He was directing a sitcom and one day the main actress didn’t show up for the filming, realizing that the two of them looked alike, he asked Y/N to take her place during that day.

She did such a good job, that the following year he called her asking if she would be interested in taking part in a movie.

That was the first of many jobs, 10 years had passed after that. It was 1991 and Y/N was one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, any movie with her name on, joined countless people in cinema lines just to see it. 

She didn’t just make movies and series, but she extended her career,  taking part in some modeling jobs for major brands and appearing in video clips.

That’s how she met Steven Tyler, the infamous vocalist of Aerosmith. She had said in an interview that Aerosmith was one of her favorite bands and got surprised when the band’s manager got in touch with her a few days later asking if she would want to take part in a video clip of theirs. 

Doing small talk before the footage they found out they had the same zodiac sign, Aries. After that the two of them got really along, Steven invited her to have dinner with him and his wife and soon all of them became good friends. 

That’s how she ended up here, on March 26th in front of his mansion, a bottle of expensive wine wrapped as a gift in one hand while the other rang the doorbell. 

“Y/N! Come in!” It was Steven’s wife.

“Hello, Teresa, how are you?” She hugged her.

“I’m fine!” She smiled tenderly at Y/N.

There was rock music blasting from the speakers sprawled around the living room, where lots of people were dancing and having fun together. Steven was known for having many friends.

“Ste!!” She shouted, lifting her arms to get a hug from the man.

“Y/N! I’m happy that you came!”  He hugged her while smiling.

“Happy birthday!!” She let go of him. “Here, I brought you a gift.”

“Ohh, this is one of my favorites!” He smirked checking out the bottle. “I’ll take it to the wine house before someone decides to drink it.” He gave her a small smile, turning around. 

That’s when she saw him. He was talking to some people, his hair half-covered by a blue bandana. He was already looking at her, smiling in her direction when their gazes met. 

A shiver ran through her body at that moment. He was beautiful, an adjective she hardly used with men. But damn, she had never seen a man like that before. Everything on him looked perfect, his beard, his hair, his eyes and the shape of his face. 

He lifted his beer in her direction and she gave him a small smile, contemplating if she should go and try to talk to him. However, a friend of hers showed up, blocking her plans.

After a few minutes of talking her friend walked away, but the ginger man had disappeared. Walking towards the kitchen she got herself a beer and went to the backyard where some people were smoking, including Steven.

“Can I have one?” She asked, stopping beside him.

He handed her the cigarette, without saying anything. The two of them just stayed there, looking at the night sky in silence. 

“What’s up?” She frowned, turning to look at him.

“What do you mean?” He looked down at her.

“You’re quiet tonight.” She drank from her beer, still looking at him.

“That makes two of us.” He smiled at her.

“Fair enough.” She grinned. “You go first.” Y/N pointed at him with the bottle while taking the cigarette to her lips.

“I was just thinking… I’m already in my forties.” 

“Annd?” She prolonged the question, raising an eyebrow.

“I thought I’d be dead by now.” He said giggling, making her laugh as well.

She shook her head. “Quit using it and I’m sure you’ll live a very long life, Tyler.” 

“I’ll try, I’ll try.” He puffed some smoke. “What about you? What’s going on that little head of yours?” He touched her forehead with his index finger, giggling at his own gesture.

“There’s a guy inside…” 

He raised an eyebrow, instigating her to keep talking.

“He seems familiar.”

“How does he look like?”

“He’s ginger, with a bandana and leather jacket.” She dragged some smoke.

“Oh, that’s Axl. He’s from Guns n Roses.” He threw his cigarette on the pavement, stepping on it.

Realization took hold of her face. “Oh yeah. Paradise City! I remember now.”

“Did he catch your eye?” He asked smirking.

“You know how I am. I’m weak on the knees for a ginger.” She smirked back.

“Let’s go inside then, I’ll introduce the two of you.” 

She followed him inside the house, putting out the cigarette in an ashtray she found on the way.

They found him in the kitchen, putting some punch on a red plastic glass nearby the counter. 

“Axl!” He shouted over the music, stopping nearby the man. “There’s someone here I’d like you to meet..”

Fuck, Steven. You really know how to be discreet. She thought to herself.

“Axl, this is Y/N.” With a hand on her back, he led her closer to him. “Y/N this is Axl.” He grinned at them.

“Nice to meet you.” Axl said, extending his hand for her to shake.  

She shook his hand giving him a small smile.

“I was just telling Y/N that you guys released a new album this year…” Steven looked at her. 

“There’s two of them actually.” He answered while taking a sip from the punch.

“So I’ve heard! But I didn’t get the chance to listen to them yet.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty recent… Did you listen to the previous ones?”

“I did! They’re quite impressive, I must say.”

He smiled at her. “I’ve seen some movies of yours too.”

“Oh, did you? What did you think of them?”

“They’re… quite impressive.” He mocked her while grinning. 

She giggled. 

“Ste, can you help me with something?” Teresa showed up, hugging Steven from the side.

“Of course my darling.” He hugged her back. “Sorry guys.” Giving them a small smile he left with Teresa. 

“Punch?” He asked seeing that her bottle was empty. 

“Yes, please.” She placed the bottle on the counter. 

Axl handed her a glass, their fingers brushing against each other when she took it from his hand, making a strange electricity run through their bodies.

“Do you live here? In L.A I mean.” She asked before taking a small sip of the beverage. 

“I do, even though I’m never at home. I’m out on tour now, came back just for a few weeks.”

“It must be really tiring to be always traveling.”

“Well, it is, but it’s worth it. After all I get to do what I love.” His eyes shined while he spoke and she smiled at his passion. 

A tall guy came to the counter trying to get some punch for himself, making the two of them move.

Starting to lead him towards an adjacent living room, she asked. “Have you always wanted to be a singer?”

“No really, my family is very religious so I started singing in the church’s choir. Then someone told my mother that I could sing and she made me take classes almost every day. It was very exhausting, but it made me realize that I actually liked to sing.”

Arriving at the room, nobody was there and the music made itself lower, allowing them to talk in a normal volume. They sat on the purple velvet couch. 

“I would’ve never guessed. And are you still religious?”

“I mean, I don’t go to church anymore, but yeah, I’m still very religious.”

She nodded drinking from her glass. 

“What about you? Have you always wanted to be an actress?”

“Yes! I remember being 3 or 4 and sitting in the living room, I’d point to the TV and tell my mom that I wanted to do that.” She smiled with the memory, her eyes getting a different glist. 

“That’s a sweet memory.” He smiled at her.

And so they carried on with the conversation, talking about their favorite things and their ambitions, never letting an uncomfortable silence fill in. Even if they were sure that if the silence set in it would not be uncomfortable. The two were too comfortable with each other for this to happen.

Axl was leaning against the couch casually, his legs spread open while S/N had removed her high heels and was sitting with her two legs sprawled on top of the couch.

“And how did you end up in Los Angeles?” She asked.

“Well, when I was 16 or something, this boy from my school, he’s my rhythm guitarist now, he started a garage band with some other dudes and asked me to be their vocalist.” 

He paused getting closer to her.

“In the beginning, I was very shy, there would be days where I’d literally leave before I could sing anything. But after some time I got used to it and eventually realized that it was nice to rehearse with them.”

“However the band didn’t work out and when Izzy graduated high-school he moved to L.A, he said he’d start a band here. He asked me to come with him, but I was kinda scared of coming to a big city like this, so I stayed in Lafayette.” 

He looked around, realizing that the music had stopped. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t listened to anything for a good while. “I think we’re the only ones who are still here.” He giggled.

“No shit! What time is it?” She touched his arm, turning it towards her so she could see the time on his wristwatch. “Fuck, it’s almost 5 am.”

“Wow. We should go then.”

“Yeah!” Getting up she got her heels and purse and followed him through the house.

There were some people passed out in the living room and Steven and Teresa were in the kitchen, nearby the sink, talking quietly.

After saying their goodbyes Axl and Y/N exited the house. The cool breeze involved their bodies, even though they could see the sun starting to shine on the horizon. 

“Did you come driving?” He asked.

“No, I got a taxi actually.”

“Come, I’ll give you a ride then.”

They got into the car and Axl started driving slowly down the street. “Where should I take you to?”

“I live in Venice.”

“Alright then.” He turned right in a bifurcation.

Checking the interior of the car, Y/N realized it was a convertible one. She gasped. “It’s a convertible! Open it up, please!” 

He giggled pressing a button that opened the bonnet. “Why are you so impressed? I’m sure you have at least three of these in your car collection…”

“I don’t have a car collection. I don’t even have a car” She turned around on her seat. The bonnet was fully open and she enjoyed feeling the breeze on her hair.

“Why not?” He frowned, looking at her for a brief moment.

“You’re gonna laugh at me.” She sat still on her seat, placing her feet on the dashboard. 

“I promise I won’t.”

“Fine… I don’t know how to drive.” 

“Wait. What? But what about all those movies where you were driving?” He looked at her, trying to see if she was joking.

“I wasn’t really driving, silly.” She giggled.

He laughed along.

“Anyway, you were telling me about how you ended here.”

“Oh yeah! So, Izzy came to L.A and I stayed for two more years. I got a job and stuff, but I was always getting in trouble. I’d spend the night in jail and they’d let me go in the morning ‘cause it wasn’t a big deal. But then I got in trouble one more time and they told me they’d arrest me for real if they got me again. So I realized I should leave the city.”

“Hmm, so you’re a bad boy…” Y/N smirked.

“I guess so…. But you’re no saint yourself! You’re not best friends with the press…”

“Well...yeah! The problem is that I don’t know how to be politically correct, I just know how to be me, and people don’t usually like when you give them your honest opinion.”

He looked at her and saw that she was looking through the window.

“On top of that, I have a high tendency of not giving a fuck… I like to live, you know? I like to go out and enjoy every moment, I like to live in the present. But apparently, you’re a bad influence if they see you leaving a club at 3 am every weekend.”

With every word she said, the more he wanted to know about her. She was so much more than what he had thought. 

It was a long drive to Venice and accompanied by the soft music playing on the car radio they talked all the way, never getting tired of each other’s voice.

“That’s my building.” She pointed to a big white building in front of the beach.

“Fully delivered.” Axl said smiling, stopping the car in front of it and turning around to look at her.

“I really liked spending time with you.” She smiled.

“Do you think we could do it again on a date?” He asked expectantly.

“I’d love that! What about Friday?”

“Friday’s good for me. I’ll pick you up at 7 pm.” 

“Okay.”

The two of them just stayed still, looking at each other without saying anything. 

“Is it too early for me to kiss you?” He asked smiling.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you try it?” She smiled back.

And so the two of them leaned in, involving each other in a quick kiss that turned into a passionate one.

After a few seconds, she pulled away, catching her breath and opening the car door.

“Goodnight, Axl.” 

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

Little did they know that this was the beginning of a beautiful love story. Full of struggles and problems but that eventually worked out. They found a way of accepting their differences and getting along in a way that few couples could do. And after many years people still talked about them, after all, they became the most iconic 90s couple. 

[unsettlingshortstories]

Reeling for the Empire

Karen Russell (2013)

    Several of us claim to have been the daughters of samurai, but of course there is no way for anyone to verify that now. It’s a relief, in its way, the new anonymity. We come here tall and thin, noblewomen from Yamaguchi, graceful as calligraphy; short and poor, Hida girls with bloody feet, crow-voiced and vulgar; entrusted to the Model Mill by our teary mothers; rented out by our destitute uncles — but within a day or two the drink the Recruitment Agent gave us begins to take effect. And the more our kaiko-bodies begin to resemble one another, the more frantically each factory girl works to reinvent her past. One of the consequences of our captivity here in Nowhere Mill, and of the darkness that pools on the factory floor, and of the polar fur that covers our faces, blanking us all into sisters, is that anybody can be anyone she likes in the past. Some of our lies are quite bold: Yuna says that her great-uncle has a scrap of sailcloth from the Black Ships. Dai claims that she knelt alongside her samurai father at the Battle of Shiroyama. Nishi fibs that she once stowed away in the imperial caboose from Shimbashi Station to Yokohama, and saw Emperor Meiji eating pink cake. Back in Gifu I had tangly hair like a donkey’s tail, a mouth like a small red bean, but I tell the others that I was very beautiful.

    “Where are you from?” they ask me.

    “The castle in Gifu, perhaps you know it from the famous woodblocks? My great-grandfather was a warrior.”

    “Oh! But Kitsune, we thought you said your father was the one who printed the woodblocks? The famous ukiyo-e artist, Utagawa Kuniyoshi …”

    “Yes. He was, yesterday.”

    I’ll put it bluntly: we are all becoming reelers. Some kind of hybrid creature, part kaiko, silkworm caterpillar, and part human female. Some of the older workers’ faces are already quite covered with a coarse white fur, but my face and thighs stayed smooth for twenty days. In fact I’ve only just begun to grow the white hair on my belly. During my first nights and days in the silk-reeling factory I was always shaking. I have never been a hysterical person, and so at first I misread these tremors as mere mood; I was in the clutches of a giddy sort of terror, I thought. Then the roiling feeling became solid. It was the thread: a color purling invisibly in my belly. Silk. Yards and yards of thin color would soon be extracted from me by the Machine.

--

    Today, the Agent drops off two new recruits, sisters from the Yamagata Prefecture, a blue village called Sakegawa, which none of us have visited. They are the daughters of a salmon fisherman and their names are Tooka and Etsuyo. They are twelve and nineteen. Tooka has a waist-length braid and baby fat; Etsuyo looks like a forest doe, with her long neck and watchful brown eyes. We step into the light and Etsuyo swallows her scream. Tooka starts wailing—“Who are you? What’s happened to you? What is this place?”

    Dai crosses the room to them, and despite their terror the Sakegawa sisters are too sleepy and too shocked to recoil from her embrace. They appear to have drunk the tea very recently, because they’re quaking on their feet. Etsuyo’s eyes cross as if she is about to faint. Dai unrolls two tatami mats in a dark corner, helps them to stretch out. “Sleep a little,” she whispers. “Dream.”

    “Is this the silk-reeling factory?” slurs Tooka, half-conscious on her bedroll.

    “Oh, yes,” Dai says. Her furry face hovers like a moon above them.

    Tooka nods, satisfied, as if willing to dismiss all of her terror to continue believing in the Agent’s promises, and shuts her eyes.

    Sometimes when the new recruits confide the hopes that brought them to our factory, I have to suppress a bitter laugh. Long before the kaiko change turned us into mirror images of one another, we were sisters already, spinning identical dreams in beds thousands of miles apart, fantasizing about gold silks and an “imperial vocation.” We envisioned our future dowries, our families’ miraculous freedom from debt. We thrilled to the same tales of women working in the grand textile mills, where steel machines from Europe gleamed in the light of the Meiji sunrise. Our world had changed so rapidly in the wake of the Black Ships that the poets could barely keep pace with the scenes outside their own windows. Industry, trade, unstoppable growth: years before the Agent came to find us, our dreams anticipated his promises.

    Since my arrival here, my own fantasies have grown as dark as the room. In them I snip a new girl’s thread midair, or yank all the silk out of her at once, so that she falls lifelessly forward like a Bunraku puppet. I haven’t been able to cry since my first night here — but often I feel a water pushing at my skull. “Can the thread migrate to your brain?” I’ve asked Dai nervously. Silk starts as a liquid. Right now I can feel it traveling below my navel, my thread. Foaming icily along the lining of my stomach. Under the blankets I watch it rise in a hard lump. There are twenty workers sleeping on twelve tatami, two rows of us, our heads ten centimeters apart, our earlobes curled like snails on adjacent leaves, and though we are always hungry, every one of us has a round belly. Most nights I can barely sleep, moaning for dawn and the Machine.

--

    Every aspect of our new lives, from working to sleeping, eating and shitting, bathing when we can get wastewater from the Machine, is conducted in one brick room. The far wall has a single oval window, set high in its center. Too high for us to see much besides scraps of cloud and a woodpecker that is like a celebrity to us, provoking gasps and applause every time he appears. Kaiko-joko, we call ourselves. Silkworm-workers. Unlike regular joko, we have no foreman or men. We are all alone in the box of this room. Dai says that she’s the dormitory supervisor, but that’s Dai’s game.

    We were all brought here by the same man, the factory Recruitment Agent. A representative, endorsed by Emperor Meiji himself, from the new Ministry for the Promotion of Industry.

    We were all told slightly different versions of the same story.

    Our fathers or guardians signed contracts that varied only slightly in their terms, most promising a five-yen advance for one year of our lives.

    The Recruitment Agent travels the countryside to recruit female workers willing to travel far from their home prefectures to a new European-style silk-reeling mill. Presumably, he is out recruiting now. He makes his pitch not to the woman herself but to her father or guardian, or in some few cases, where single women cannot be procured, her husband. I am here on behalf of the nation, he begins. In the spirit of Shokusan-Kōgyō. Increase production, encourage industry. We are recruiting only the most skillful and loyal mill workers, he continues. Not just peasant girls — like your offspring, he might say with his silver tongue to men in the Gifu and Mie prefectures — but the well-bred daughters of noblemen. Samurai and aristocrats. City-born governors have begged me to train their daughters on the Western technologies. Last week, the Medical General of the Imperial Army sent his nineteen-year-old twins, by train! Sometimes there is resistance from the father or guardian, especially among the hicks, those stony-faced men from distant centuries who still make bean paste, wade into rice paddies, brew sake using thousand-year-old methods; but the Agent waves all qualms away — Ah, you’ve heard about x-Mill or y-Factory? No, the French yatoi engineers don’t drink girls’ blood, haha, that is what they call red wine. Yes, there was a fire at Aichi Factory, a little trouble with tuberculosis in Suwa. But our factory is quite different — it is a national secret. Yes, a place that makes even the French filature in the backwoods of Gunma, with its brick walls and steam engines, look antiquated! This phantom factory he presents to her father or guardian with great cheerfulness and urgency, for he says we have awoken to dawn, the Enlightened Era of the Meiji, and we must all play our role now. Japan’s silk is her world export. The Blight in Europe, the pébrine virus, has killed every silkworm, forever halted the Westerners’ cocoon production. The demand is as vast as the ocean. This is the moment to seize. Silk-reeling is a sacred vocation — she will be reeling for the empire.

    The fathers and guardians nearly always sign the contract. Publicly, the joko’s family will share a cup of hot tea with the Agent. They celebrate her new career and the five-yen advance against her legally mortgaged future. Privately, an hour or so later, the Agent will share a special toast with the girl herself. The Agent improvises his tearooms: an attic in a forest inn or a locked changing room in a bathhouse or, in the case of Iku, an abandoned cowshed.

--

    After sunset, the old blind woman arrives. “The zookeeper,” we call her. She hauls our food to the grated door, unbars the lower panel. We pass her that day’s skeins of reeled silk, and she pushes two sacks of mulberry leaves through the panel with a long stick. The woman never speaks to us, no matter what questions we shout at her. She simply waits, patiently, for our skeins, and so long as they are acceptable in quality and weight, she slides in our leaves. Tonight she has also slid in a tray of steaming human food for the new recruits. Tooka and Etsuyo get cups of rice and miso soup with floating carrots. Hunks of real ginger are unraveling in the broth, like hair. We all sit on the opposite side of the room and watch them chew with a dewy nostalgia that disgusts me even as I find myself ogling their long white fingers on their chopsticks, the balls of rice. The salt and fat smells of their food make my eyes ache. When we eat the mulberry leaves, we lower our new faces to the floor.

    They drink down the soup in silence. “Are we dreaming?” I hear one whisper.

    “The tea drugged us!” the younger sister, Tooka, cries at last. Her gaze darts here and there, as if she’s hoping to be contradicted. They traveled nine days by riverboat and oxcart, Etsuyo tells us, wearing blindfolds the entire time. So we could be that far north of Yamagata, or west. Or east, the younger sister says. We collect facts from every new kaiko-joko and use them to draw thread maps of Japan on the factory floor. But not even Tsuki the Apt can guess our whereabouts.

    Nowhere Mill, we call this place.

    Dai crosses the room and speaks soothingly to the sisters; then she leads them right to me. Oh, happy day. I glare at her through an unchewed mouthful of leaves.

    “Kitsune is quite a veteran now,” says smiling Dai, leading the fishy sisters to me, “she will show you around—”

    I hate this part. But you have to tell the new ones what’s in store for them. Minds have been spoiled by the surprise.

    “Will the manager of this factory be coming soon?” Etsuyo asks, in a grave voice. “I think there has been a mistake.”

    “We don’t belong here!” Tooka breathes.

    There’s nowhere else for you now, I say, staring at the floor. That tea he poured into you back in Sakegawa? The Agent’s drink is remaking your insides. Your intestines, your secret organs. Soon your stomachs will bloat. You will manufacture silk in your gut with the same helpless skill that you digest food, exhale. The kaiko-change, he calls it. A revolutionary process. Not even Chiyo, who knows sericulture, has ever heard of a tea that turns girls into silkworms. We think the tea may have been created abroad, by French chemists or British engineers. Yatoi-tea. Unless it’s the Agent’s own technology.

    I try to smile at them now.

    In the cup it was so lovely to look at, wasn’t it? An orange hue, like something out of the princess’s floating world woodblocks.

    Etsuyo is shaking. “But we can’t undo it? Surely there’s a cure. A way to reverse it, before it’s … too late.”

    Before we look like you, she means.

    “The only cure is a temporary one, and it comes from the Machine. When your thread begins, you’ll understand …”

    It takes thirteen to fourteen hours for the Machine to empty a kaiko-joko of her thread. The relief of being rid of it is indescribable.

    These seashore girls know next to nothing about silkworm cultivation. In the mountains of Chichibu, Chiyo tells them, everyone in her village was involved. Seventy families worked together in a web: planting and watering the mulberry trees, raising the kaiko eggs to pupa, feeding the silkworm caterpillars. The art of silk production was very, very inefficient, I tell the sisters. Slow and costly. Until us.

    I try to weed the pride from my voice, but it’s difficult. In spite of everything, I can’t help but admire the quantity of silk that we kaiko-joko can produce in a single day. The Agent boasts that he has made us the most productive machines in the empire, surpassing even those steel zithers and cast-iron belchers at Tomioka Model Mill.

    Eliminated: mechanical famine. Supply problems caused by the cocoons’ tiny size and irregular quality.

    Eliminated: waste silk.

    Eliminated: the cultivation of the kaiko. The harvesting of their eggs. The laborious collection and separation of the silk cocoons. We silkworm-girls combine all these processes in the single factory of our bodies. Ceaselessly, even while we dream, we are generating thread. Every droplet of our energy, every moment of our time flows into the silk.

    I guide the sisters to the first of the three workbenches. “Here are the basins,” I say, “steam heated, quite modern, eh, where we boil the water.”

    I plunge my left hand under the boiling water for as long as I can bear it. Soon the skin of my fingertips softens and bursts, and fine waggling fibers rise from them. Green thread lifts right out of my veins. With my right hand I pluck up the thread from my left fingertips and wrist.

    “See? Easy.”

    A single strand is too fine to reel. So you have to draw several out, wind six or eight around your finger, rub them together, to get the right denier; when they are thick enough, you feed them to the Machine.

    Dai is drawing red thread onto her reeler, watching me approvingly.

    “Are we monsters now?” Tooka wants to know.

    I give Dai a helpless look; that’s a question I won’t answer.

    Dai considers.

    In the end she tells the new reelers about the juhyou, the “snow monsters,” snow-and-ice-covered trees in Zao Onsen, her home. “The snow monsters”—Dai smiles, brushing her white whiskers—“are very beautiful. Their disguises make them beautiful. But they are still trees, you see, under all that frost.”

--

    While the sisters drink in this news, I steer them to the Machine.

    The Machine looks like a great steel-and-wood beast with a dozen rotating eyes and steaming mouths — it’s twenty meters long and takes up nearly half the room. The central reeler is a huge and ever-spinning O, capped with rows of flashing metal teeth. Pulleys swing our damp thread left to right across it, refining it into finished silk. Tooka shivers and says it looks as if the Machine is smiling at us. Kaiko-joko sit at the workbenches that face the giant wheel, pulling glowing threads from their own fingers, stretching threads across their reeling frames like zither strings. A stinging music.

    No tebiki cranks to turn, I show them. Steam power has freed both our hands.

    “ ‘Freed,’ I suppose, isn’t quite the right word, is it?” says Iku drily. Lotus-colored thread is flooding out of her left palm and reeling around her dowel. With her right hand she adjusts the outflow.

    Here is the final miracle, I say: our silk comes out of us in colors. There is no longer any need to dye it. There is no other silk like it on the world market, boasts the Agent. If you look at it from the right angle, a pollen seems to rise up and swirl into your eyes. Words can’t exaggerate the joy of this effect.

    Nobody has ever guessed her own color correctly — Hoshi predicted hers would be peach and it was blue; Nishi thought pink, got hazel. I would have bet my entire five-yen advance that mine would be light gray, like my cat’s fur. But then I woke and pushed the swollen webbing of my thumb and a sprig of green came out. On my day zero, in the middle of my terror, I was surprised into a laugh: here was a translucent green I swore I’d never seen before anywhere in nature, and yet I knew it as my own on sight.

    “It’s as if the surface is charged with our aura,” says Hoshi, counting syllables on her knuckles for her next haiku.

    About this I don’t tease her. I’m no poet, but I’d swear to the silks’ strange glow. The sisters seem to agree with me; one looks like she’s about to faint.

    “Courage, sisters!” sings Hoshi. Hoshi is our haiku laureate. She came from a school for young noblewomen and pretends to have read every book in the world. We all agree that she is generally insufferable.

    “Our silks are sold in Paris and America — they are worn by Emperor Meiji himself. The Agent tells me we are the treasures of the realm.” Hoshi’s white whiskers extend nearly to her ears now. Hoshi’s optimism is indefatigable.

    “That girl was hairy when she got here,” I whisper to the sisters, “if you want to know the truth.”

--

    The old blind woman comes again, takes our silks, pushes the leaves in with a stick, and we fall upon them. If you think we kaiko-joko leave even one trampled stem behind, you underestimate the deep, death-thwarting taste of the mulberry. Vital green, as if sunlight is zipping up your spinal column.

    In other factories, we’ve heard, there are foremen and managers and whistles to announce and regulate the breaks. Here the clocks and whistles are in our bodies. The thread itself is our boss. There is a fifteen-minute period between the mulberry orgy—“call it the evening meal, please, don’t be disgusting,” Dai pleads, her saliva still gleaming on the floor — and the regeneration of the thread. During this period, we sit in a circle in the center of the room, an equal distance from our bedding and the Machine. Stubbornly we reel backward: Takayama town. Oyaka village. Toku. Kiyo. Nara. Fudai. Sho. Radishes and pickles. Laurel and camphor smells of Shikoku. Father. Mother. Mount Fuji. The Inland Sea.

--

    All Japan is undergoing a transformation — we kaiko-joko are not alone in that respect. I watched my grandfather become a sharecropper on his own property. A dependent. He was a young man when the Black Ships came to Edo. He grew foxtail millet and red buckwheat. Half his crop he paid in rent; then two-thirds; finally, after two bad harvests, he owed his entire yield. That year, our capital moved in a ceremonial, and real, procession from Kyoto to Edo, now Tokyo, the world shedding names under the carriage wheels, and the teenage emperor in his palanquin traveling over the mountains like an imperial worm.

    In the first decade of the Mejii government, my grandfather was forced into bankruptcy by the land tax. In 1873, he joined the farmer’s revolt in Chūbu. Along with hundreds of others of the newly bankrupted and dispossessed from Chūbu, Gifa, Aichi, he set fire to the creditor’s offices where his debts were recorded. After the rebellion failed, he hanged himself in our barn. The gesture was meaningless. The debt still existed, of course.

    My father inherited the debts of his father.

    There was no dowry for me.

    In my twenty-third year, my mother died, and my father turned white, lay flat. Death seeded in him and began to grow tall, like grain, and my brothers carried Father to the Inoba shrine for the mountain cure.

    It was at precisely this moment that the Recruitment Agent arrived at our door.

    The Agent visited after a thundershower. He had a parasol from London. I had never seen such a handsome person in my life, man or woman. He had blue eyelids, a birth defect, he said, but it had worked out to his extraordinary advantage. He let me sniff at his vial of French cologne. It was as if a rumor had materialized inside the dark interior of our farmhouse. He wore Western dress. He also had — and I found this incredibly appealing — mid-ear sideburns and a mustache.

    “My father is sick,” I told him. I was alone in the house. “He is in the other room, sleeping.”

    “Well, let’s not disturb him.” The Agent smiled and stood to go.

    “I can read,” I said. For years I’d worked as a servant in the summer retreat of a Kobe family. “I can write my name.”

    Show me the contract, I begged him.

    And he did. I couldn’t run away from the factory and I couldn’t die, either, explained the Recruitment Agent — and perhaps I looked at him a little dreamily, because I remember that he repeated this injunction in a hard voice, tightening up the grammar: “If you die, your father will pay.” He was peering deeply into my face; it was April, and I could see the rain in his mustache. I met his gaze and giggled, embarrassing myself.

    “Look at you, blinking like a firefly! Only it’s very serious—”

    He lunged forward and grabbed playfully at my waist, causing my entire face to darken in what I hoped was a womanly blush. The Agent, perhaps fearful that I was choking on a radish, thumped my back.

    “There, there, Kitsune! You will come with me to the model factory? You will reel for the realm, for your emperor? For me, too,” he added softly, with a smile.

    I nodded, very serious myself now. He let his fingers brush softly against my knuckles as he drew out the contract.

    “Let me bring it to Father,” I told the Agent. “Stand back. Stay here. His disease is contagious.”

    The Agent laughed. He said he wasn’t used to being bossed by a joko. But he waited. Who knows if he believed me?

    My father would never have signed the document. He would not have agreed to let me go. He blamed the new government for my grandfather’s death. He was suspicious of foreigners. He would have demanded to know, certainly, where the factory was located. But I could work whereas he could not. I saw my father coming home, cured, and finding the five-yen advance. I had never used an ink pen before. In my life as a daughter and a sister, I had never felt so powerful. No woman in Gifu had ever brokered such a deal on her own. KITSUNE TAJIMA, I wrote in the slot for the future worker’s name, my heart pounding in my ears. When I returned it, I apologized for my father’s unsteady hand.

    On our way to the kaiko-tea ceremony, I was so excited that I could barely make my questions about the factory intelligible. He took me to a summer guesthouse in the woods behind the Miya River, which he told me was owned by a Takayama merchant family and, at the moment, empty.

    Something is wrong, I knew then. This knowledge sounded with such clarity that it seemed almost independent of my body, like a bird calling once over the trees. But I proceeded, following the Agent toward a dim staircase. The first room I glimpsed was elegantly furnished, and I felt my spirits lift again, along with my caution. I counted fourteen steps to the first landing, where he opened the door onto a room that reflected none of the downstairs refinement. There was a table with two stools, a bed; otherwise the room was bare. I was surprised to see a large brown blot on the mattress. One porcelain teapot. One cup. The Agent lifted the tea with an unreadable expression, frowning into the pot; as he poured, I thought I heard a little splash; then he cursed, excused himself, said he needed a fresh ingredient. I heard him continuing up the staircase. I peered into the cup and saw that there was something alive inside it — writhing, dying — a fat white kaiko. I shuddered but I didn’t fish it out. What sort of tea ceremony was this? Maybe, I thought, the Agent is testing me, to see if I am squeamish, weak. Something bad was coming — the stench of a bad and thickening future was everywhere in that room. The bad thing was right under my nose, crinkling its little legs at me.

    I pinched my nostrils shut, just as if I were standing in the mud a heartbeat from jumping into the Miya River. Without so much as consulting the Agent, I squinched my eyes shut and gulped.

    The other workers cannot believe I did this willingly. Apparently, one sip of the kaiko-tea is so venomous that most bodies go into convulsions. Only through the Agent’s intervention were they able to get the tea down. It took his hands around their throats.

    I arranged my hands in my lap and sat on the cot. Already I was feeling a little dizzy. I remember smiling with a sweet vacancy at the door when he returned.

    “You — drank it.”

    I nodded proudly.

    Then I saw pure amazement pass over his face — I passed the test, I thought happily. Only it wasn’t that, quite. He began to laugh.

    “No joko,” he sputtered, “not one of you, ever—” He was rolling his eyes at the room’s corners, as if he regretted that the hilarity of this moment was wasted on me. “No girl has ever gulped a pot of it!”

    Already the narcolepsy was buzzing through me, like a hive of bees stinging me to sleep. I lay guiltily on the mat — why couldn’t I sit up? Now the Agent would think I was worthless for work. I opened my mouth to explain that I was feeling ill but only a smacking sound came out. I held my eyes open for as long as I could stand it.

    Even then, I was still dreaming of my prestigious new career as a factory reeler. Under the Meiji government, the hereditary classes had been abolished, and I even let myself imagine that the Agent might marry me, pay off my family’s debts. As I watched, the Agent’s genteel expression underwent a complete transformation; suddenly it was as blank as a stump. The last thing I saw, before shutting my eyes, was his face.

--

    I slept for two days and woke on a dirty tatami in this factory with Dai applauding me; the green thread had erupted through my palms in my sleep — the metamorphosis unusually accelerated. I was lucky, as Chiyo says. Unlike Tooka and Etsuyo and so many of the others I had no limbo period, no cramps from my guts unwinding, changing; no time at all to meditate on what I was becoming — a secret, a furred and fleshy silk factory.

    What would Chiyo think of me, if she knew how much I envy her initiation story? That what befell her — her struggle, her screams — I long for? That I would exchange my memory for Chiyo’s in a heartbeat? Surely this must be the final, inarguable proof that I am, indeed, a monster.

    Many workers here have a proof of their innocence, some physical trace, on the body: scar tissue, a brave spot. A sign of struggle that is ineradicable. Some girls will push their white fuzz aside to show you: Dai’s pocked hands, Mitsuki’s rope burns around her neck. Gin has wiggly lines around her mouth, like lightning, where she was scalded by the tea that she spat out.

    And me?

    There was a moment, at the bottom of the stairwell, and a door that I could easily have opened back into the woods of Gifu. I alone, it seems, out of twenty-two workers, signed my own contract.

    “Why did you drink it, Kitsune?”

    I shrug.

    “I was thirsty,” I say.

--

    Roosters begin to crow outside the walls of Nowhere Mill at five a.m. They make a sound like gargled light, very beautiful, which I picture as Dai’s red and Gin’s orange and Yoshi’s pink thread singing on the world’s largest reeler. Dawn. I’ve been lying awake in the dark for hours.

    “Kitsune, you never sleep. I hear the way you breathe,” Dai says.

    “I sleep a little.”

    “What stops you?” Dai rubs her belly sadly. “Too much thread?”

    “Up here.” I knock on my head. “I can’t stop reliving it: the Agent walking through our fields under his parasol, in the rain …”

    “You should sleep,” says Dai, peering into my eyeball. “Yellowish. You don’t look well.”

    Midmorning, there is a malfunction. Some hitch in the Machine causes my reeler to spin backward, pulling the thread from my fingers so quickly that I am jerked onto my knees; then I’m dragged along the floor toward the Machine’s central wheel like an enormous, flopping fish. The room fills with my howls. With surprising calm, I become aware that my right arm is on the point of being wrenched from its socket. I lift my chin and begin, with a naturalness that belongs entirely to my terror, to swivel my head around and bite blindly at the air; at last I snap the threads with my kaiko-jaws and fall sideways. Under my wrist, more thread kinks and scrags. There is a terrible stinging in my hands and my head. I let my eyes close: for some reason I see the space beneath my mother’s cedar chest, where the moonlight lay in green splashes on our floor. I used to hide there as a child and sleep so soundly that no one in our one-room house could ever find me. No such luck today: hands latch onto my shoulders. Voices are calling my name—“Kitsune! Are you awake? Are you okay?”

    “I’m just clumsy,” I laugh nervously. But then I look down at my hand. Short threads extrude from the bruised skin of my knuckles. They are the wrong color. Not my green. Ash.

    Suddenly I feel short of breath again.

    It gets worse when I look up. The silk that I reeled this morning is bright green. But the more recent thread drying on the bottom of my reeler is black. Black as the sea, as the forest at night, says Hoshi euphemistically. She is too courteous to make the more sinister comparisons.

    I swallow a cry. Am I sick? It occurs to me that five or six of these black threads dragged my entire weight. It had felt as though my bones would snap in two before my thread did.

    “Oh no!” gasp Tooka and Etsuyo. Not exactly sensitive, these sisters from Sakegawa. “Oh, poor Kitsune! Is that going to happen to us, too?”

    “Anything you want to tell us?” Dai prods. “About how you are feeling?”

    “I feel about as well as you all look today,” I growl.

    “I’m not worried,” says Dai in a too-friendly way, clapping my shoulder. “Kitsune just needs sleep.”

    But everybody is staring at the spot midway up the reel where the green silk shades into black.

--

    My next mornings are spent splashing through the hot water basin, looking for fresh fibers. I pull out yards of the greenish-black thread. Soiled silk. Hideous. Useless for kimonos. I sit and reel for my sixteen hours, until the Machine gets the last bit out of me with a shudder.

    My thread is green three days out of seven. After that, I’m lucky to get two green outflows in a row. This transformation happens to me alone. None of the other workers report a change in their colors. It must be my own illness then, not kaiko-evolution. If we had a foreman here, he would quarantine me. He might destroy me, the way silkworms infected with the blight are burned up in Katamura.

    And in Gifu? Perhaps my father has died at the base of Mount Inaba. Or has he made a full recovery, journeyed home with my brothers, and cried out with joyful astonishment to find my five-yen advance? Let it be that, I pray. My afterlife will be whatever he chooses to do with that money.

--

    Today marks the forty-second day since we last saw the Agent. In the past he has reliably surprised us with visits, once or twice per month. Factory inspections, he calls them, scribbling notes about the progress of our transformations, the changes in our weight and shape, the quality of our silk production. He’s never stayed away so long before. The thought of the Agent, either coming or not coming, makes me want to retch. Water sloshes in my head. I lie on the mat with my eyes shut tight and watch the orange tea splash into my cup …

    “I hear you in there, Kitsune. I know what you’re doing. You didn’t sleep.”

    Dai’s voice. I keep my eyes shut.

    “Kitsune, stop thinking about it. You are making yourself sick.”

    “Dai, I can’t.”

    Today my stomach is so full of thread that I’m not sure I’ll be able to stand. I’m afraid that it will all be black. Some of us are now forced to crawl on our hands and knees to the Machine, toppled by our ungainly bellies. I can smell the basins heating. A thick, greasy steam fills the room. I peek up at Dai’s face, then let my eyes flutter shut again.

    “Smell that?” I say, more nastily than I intend to. “In here we’re dead already. At least on the stairwell I can breathe forest air.”

    “Unwinding one cocoon for an eternity,” she snarls. “As if you had only a single memory. Reeling in the wrong direction.”

    Dai looks ready to slap me. She’s angrier than I’ve ever seen her. Dai is the Big Mother but she’s also a samurai’s daughter, and sometimes that combination gives rise to a ferocious kind of caring. She’s tender with the little ones, but if an older joko plummets into a mood or ill health, she’ll scream at us until our ears split. Furious, I suppose, at her inability to defend us from ourselves.

    “The others also suffered in their pasts,” she says. “But we sleep, we get up, we go to work, some crawl forward if there is no other way …”

    “I’m not like the others,” I insist, hating the baleful note in my voice but desperate to make Dai understand this. Is Dai blind to the contrast? Can she not see that the innocent recruits — the ones who were signed over to the Agent by their fathers and their brothers — produce pure colors, in radiant hues? Whereas my thread looks rotten, greeny-black.

    “Sleep can’t wipe me clean like them. I chose this fate. I can’t blame a greedy uncle, a gullible father. I drank the tea of my own free will.”

    “Your free will,” says Dai, so slowly that I’m sure she’s about to mock me; then her eyes widen with something like joy. “Ah! So: use that to stop drinking it at night, in your memory. Use your will to stop thinking about the Agent.”

    Dai is smiling down at me like she’s won the argument.

    “Oh, yes, very simple!” I laugh angrily. “I’ll just stop. Why didn’t I think of that? Say, here’s one for you, Dai,” I snap. “Stop reeling for the Agent at your workbench. Stop making the thread in your gut. Try that, I’m sure you’ll feel better.”

    Then we are shouting at each other, our first true fight; Dai doesn’t understand that this memory reassembles itself in me mechanically, just as the thread swells in our new bodies. It’s nothing I control. I see the Agent arrive; my hand trembling; the ink lacing my name across the contract. My regret: I know I’ll never get to the bottom of it. I’ll never escape either place, Nowhere Mill or Gifu. Every night, the cup refills in my mind.

    “Go reel for the empire, Dai. Make more silk for him to sell. Go throw the little girls another party! Make believe we’re not slaves here.”

    Dai storms off, and I feel a mean little pleasure.

    For two days we don’t speak, until I worry that we never will again. But on the second night, Dai finds me. She leans in and whispers that she has accepted my challenge. At first I am so happy to hear her voice that I only laugh, take her hand. “What challenge? What are you talking about?”

    “I thought about what you said,” she tells me. She talks about her samurai father’s last stand, the Satsuma Rebellion. In the countryside, she says, there are peasant armies who protest “the blood tax,” refuse to sow new crops. I nod with my eyes shut, watching my grandfather’s hat floating through our fields in Gifu.

    “And you’re right, Kitsune — we have to stop reeling. If we don’t, he’ll get every year of our futures. He’ll get our last breaths. The silk belongs to us, we make it. We can use that to bargain with the Agent.”

    The following morning, Dai announces that she won’t move from her mat.

    “I’m on strike,” she says. “No more reeling.”

    By the second day, her belly has grown so bloated with thread that we are begging her to work. The mulberry leaves arrive, and she refuses to eat them.

    “No more room for that.” She smiles.

    Dai’s face is so swollen that she can’t open one eye. She lies with her arms crossed over her chest, her belly heaving.

    By the fourth day, I can barely look at her.

    “You’ll die,” I whisper.

    She nods resolutely.

    “I’m escaping. He might still stop me. But I’ll do my best.”

    We send a note for the Agent with the blind woman. “Please tell him to come.”

    “Join me,” Dai begs us, and our eyes dull and lower, we sway. For five days, Dai doesn’t reel. She never eats. Some of us, I’m sure, don’t mind the extra fistful of leaves. (A tiny voice I can’t gag begins to babble in the background: If x-many others strike, Kitsune, there will be x-much more food for you …)

    Guiltily, I set her portion aside, pushing the leaves into a little triangle. There, I think. The flag of Dai’s resistance. Something flashes on one — a real silkworm. Inching along in its wet and stupid oblivion. My stomach flips to see all the little holes its hunger has punched into the green leaf.

    During our break, I bring Dai my blanket. I try to squeeze some of the water from the leaf-velvet onto her tongue, which she refuses. She doesn’t make a sound, but I hiss — her belly is grotesquely distended and stippled with lumps, like a sow’s pregnant with a litter of ten piglets. Her excess thread is packed in knots. Strangling Dai from within. Perhaps the Agent can call on a Western veterinarian, I find myself thinking. Whatever is happening to her seems beyond the ken of Emperor Meiji’s own doctors.

    “Start reeling again!” I gasp. “Dai, please.”

    “It looks worse than it is. It’s easy enough to stop. You’ll see for yourself, I hope.”

    Her skin has an unhealthy translucence. Her eyes are standing out in her shrunken face, as if every breath costs her. Soon I will be able to see the very thoughts in her skull, the way red thread fans into veiny view under her skin. Dai gives me her bravest smile. “Get some rest, Kitsune. Stop poisoning yourself on the stairwell of Gifu. If I can stop reeling, surely you can, too.”

--

    When she dies, all the silk is still stubbornly housed in her belly, “stolen from the factory,” as the Agent alleges. “This girl died a thief.”

    Three days after her death, he finally shows up. He strides over to Dai and touches her belly with a stick. When a few of us grab for his legs, he makes a face and kicks us off.

    “Perhaps we can still salvage some of it,” he grumbles, rolling her into his sack.

--

    A great sadness settles over our whole group and doesn’t lift. What the Agent carried off with Dai was everything we had left: Chiyo’s clouds and mountains, my farmhouse in Gifu, Etsuyo’s fiancé. It’s clear to us now that we can never leave this room — we can never be away from the Machine for more than five days. Unless we live here, where the Machine can extract the thread from our bodies at speeds no human hand could match, the silk will build and build and kill us in the end. Dai’s experiment has taught us that.

    You never hear a peep in here about the New Year anymore.

--

    I’m eating, I’m reeling, but I, too, appear to be dying. Thread almost totally black. The denier too uneven for any market. In my mind I talk to Dai about it, and she is very reassuring: “It’s going to be fine, Kitsune. Only, please, you have to stop—”

    Stop thinking about it. This was Dai’s final entreaty to me.

    I close my eyes. I watch my hand signing my father’s name again. I am at the bottom of a stairwell in Gifu. The first time I made this ascent I felt weightless, but now the wood groans under my feet. Just as a single cocoon contains a thousand yards of silk, I can unreel a thousand miles from my memory of this one misstep.

    Still, I’m not convinced that you were right, Dai — that it’s such a bad thing, a useless enterprise, to reel and reel out my memory at night. Some part of me, the human part of me, is kept alive by this, I think. Like water flushing a wound, to prevent it from closing. I am a lucky one, like Chiyo says. I made a terrible mistake. In Gifu, in my raggedy clothes, I had an unreckonable power. I didn’t know that at the time. But when I return to the stairwell now, I can feel them webbing around me: my choices, their infinite variety, spiraling out of my hands, my invisible thread. Regret is a pilgrimage back to the place where I was free to choose. It’s become my sanctuary here in Nowhere Mill. A threshold where I still exist.

    One morning, two weeks after Dai’s strike, I start talking to Chiyo about her family’s cottage business in Chichibu. Chiyo complains about the smells in her dry attic, where they destroy the silkworm larvae in vinegary solutions. Why do they do that? I want to know. I’ve never heard this part before. Oh, to stop them from undergoing the transformation, Chiyo says. First, the silkworms stop eating. Then they spin their cocoons. Once inside, they molt several times. They grow wings and teeth. If the caterpillars are allowed to evolve, they change into moths. Then these moths bite through the silk and fly off, ruining it for the market.

    Teeth and wings, wings and teeth, I keep hearing all day under the whine of the cables.

    That night, I try an experiment. I let myself think the black thoughts all evening. Great wheels inside me turn backward at fantastic, groaning velocities. What I focus on is my shadow in the stairwell, falling slantwise behind me, like silk. I see the ink spilling onto the contract, my name bloating monstrously.

    And when dawn comes, and I slug my way over to the workbench and plunge my hands into the boiling vat, I see that the experiment was a success. My new threads are stronger and blacker than ever; silk of some nameless variety we have never belly-spun before. I crank them out of my wrist and onto the dowel. There’s not a fleck of green left, not a single frayed strand. “Moonless,” says Hoshi, shrinking from them. Opaque. Midnight at Nowhere Mill pales in comparison. Looking down into the basin, I feel a wild excitement. I made it that color. So I’m no mere carrier, no diseased kaiko—I can channel these dyes from my mind into the tough new fiber. I can change my thread’s denier, control its production. Seized by a second inspiration, I begin to unreel at speeds I would have just yesterday thought laughably impossible. Not even Yuna can produce as much thread in an hour. I ignore the whispers that pool around me on the workbench:

    “Kitsune’s fishing too deep — look at her finger slits!”

    “They look like gills.” Etsuyo shudders.

    “Someone should stop her. She’s fishing right down to the bone.”

    “What is she making?”

    “What are you making?”

    “What are you going to do with all that, Kitsune?” Tooka asks nervously.

    “Oh, who knows? I’ll just see what it comes to.”

    But I do know. Without my giving a thought to what step comes next, my hands begin to fly.

    The weaving comes so naturally to me that I am barely aware I am doing it, humming as if in a dream. But this weaving is instinctual. What takes effort, what requires a special kind of concentration, is generating the right density of the thread. To do so, I have to keep forging my father’s name in my mind, climbing those stairs, watching my mistake unfurl. I have to drink the toxic tea and feel it burn my throat, lie flat on the cot while my organs are remade by the Agent for the factory, thinking only, Yes, I chose this. When these memories send the fierce regret spiraling through me, I focus on my heartbeat, my throbbing palms. Fibers stiffen inside my fingers. Grow strong, I direct the thread. Go black. Lengthen. Stick. And then, when I return to the vats, what I’ve produced is exactly the necessary denier and darkness. I sit at the workbench, at my ordinary station. And I am so happy to discover that I can do all this myself: the silk-generation, the separation, the dyeing, the reeling. Out of the same intuition, I discover that I know how to alter the Machine. “Help me, Tsuki,” I say, because I want her to watch what I am doing. I begin to explain, but she is already disassembling my reeler. “I know, Kitsune,” she says, “I see what you have in mind.” Words seem to be unnecessary now between me and Tsuki — we beam thoughts soundlessly across the room. Perhaps speech will be the next superfluity in Nowhere Mill. Another step we kaiko-girls can skip.

    Together we adjust the feeder gears, so that the black thread travels in a loop; after getting wrung out and doubled on the Machine’s great wheel, it shuttles back to my hands. I add fresh fibers, drape the long skein over my knees. It is going to be as tall as a man, six feet at least.

    Many girls continue feeding the Machine as if nothing unusual is happening. Others, like Tsuki, are watching to see what my fingers are doing. For the past several months, every time I’ve reminisced about the Agent coming to Gifu, bile has risen in my throat. It seems to be composed of every bitterness: grief and rage, the acid regrets. But then, in the middle of my weaving, obeying a queer impulse, I spit some onto my hand. This bile glues my fingers to my fur. Another of nature’s wonders. So even the nausea of regret can be converted to use. I grin to Dai in my head. With this dill-colored glue, I am at last able to rub a sealant over my new thread and complete my work.

    It takes me ten hours to spin the black cocoon.

    The first girls who see it take one look and run back to the tatami.

    The second girls are cautiously admiring.

    Hoshi waddles over with her bellyful of blue silk and screams.

    I am halfway up the southern wall of Nowhere Mill before I realize what I am doing; then I’m parallel to the woodpecker’s window. The gluey thread collected on my palms sticks me to the glass. For the first time I can see outside: from this angle, nothing but clouds and sky, a blue eternity. We will have wings soon, I think, and ten feet below me I hear Tsuki laugh out loud. Using my thread and the homemade glue, I attach the cocoon to a wooden beam; soon, I am floating in circles over the Machine, suspended by my own line. “Come down!” Hoshi yells, but she’s the only one. I secure the cocoon and then I let myself fall, all my weight supported by one thread. Now the cocoon sways over the Machine, a furled black flag, creaking slightly. I think of my grandfather hanging by the thick rope from our barn door.

    More black thread spasms down my arms.

    “Kitsune, please. You’ll make the Agent angry! You shouldn’t waste your silk that way — pretty soon they’ll stop bringing you the leaves! Don’t forget the trade, it’s silk for leaves, Kitsune. What happens when he stops feeding us?”

    But in the end I convince all of the workers to join me. Instinct obviates the need for a lesson — swiftly the others discover that they, too, can change their thread from within, drawing strength from the colors and seasons of their memories. Before we can begin to weave our cocoons, however, we first agree to work night and day to reel the ordinary silk, doubling our production, stockpiling the surplus skeins. Then we seize control of the machinery of Nowhere Mill. We spend the next six days dismantling and reassembling the Machine, using its gears and reels to speed the production of our own shimmering cocoons. Each dusk, we continue to deliver the regular number of skeins to the zookeeper, to avoid arousing the Agent’s suspicions. When we are ready for the next stage of our revolution, only then will we invite him to tour our factory floor.

    Silkworm moths develop long ivory wings, says Chiyo, bronzed with ancient designs. Do they have antennae, mouths? I ask her. Can they see? Who knows what the world will look like to us if our strike succeeds? I believe we will emerge from it entirely new creatures. In truth there is no model for what will happen to us next. We’ll have to wait and learn what we’ve become when we get out.

--

    The old blind woman really is blind, we decide. She squints directly at the wrecked and rerouted Machine and waits with her arms extended for one of us to deposit the skeins. Instead, Hoshi pushes a letter through the grate.

    “We don’t have any silk today.”

    “Bring this to the Agent.”

    “Go. Tell. Him.”

    As usual, the old woman says nothing. The mulberry sacks sit on the wagon. After a moment she claps to show us that her hands are empty, kicks the wagon away. Signals: no silk, no food. Her face is slack. On our side of the grate, I hear girls smacking their jaws, swallowing saliva. Fresh forest smells rise off the sacks. But we won’t beg, will we? We won’t turn back. Dai lived without food for five days. Our faces press against the grate. Several of our longest whiskers tickle the zookeeper’s withered cheeks; at last, a dark cloud passes over her face. She barks with surprise, swats the air. Her wrinkles tighten into a grimace of fear. She backs away from our voices, her fist closed around our invitation to the Agent.

    “NO SILK,” repeats Tsaiko slowly.

--

    The Agent comes the very next night.

    “Hello?”

    He raps at our grated door with a stick, but he remains in the threshold. For a moment I am sure that he won’t come in.

    “They’re gone, they’re gone,” I wail, rocking.

    “What!”

    The grate slides open and he steps onto the factory floor, into our shadows.

    “Yes, they’ve all escaped, every one of them, all your kaiko-joko—”

    Now my sisters drop down on their threads. They fall from the ceiling on whistling lines of silk, swinging into the light, and I feel as though I am dreaming — it is a dreamlike repetition of our initiation, when the Agent dropped the infecting kaiko into the orange tea. Watching his eyes widen and his mouth stretch into a scream, I too am shocked. We have no mirrors here in Nowhere Mill, and I’ve spent the past few months convinced that we were still identifiable as girls, women — no beauty queens, certainly, shaggy and white and misshapen, but at least half human; it’s only now, watching the Agent’s reaction, that I realize what we’ve become in his absence. I see us as he must: white faces, with sunken noses that look partially erased. Eyes insect-huge. Spines and elbows incubating lace for wings. My muscles tense, and then I am airborne, launching myself onto the Agent’s back — for a second I get a thrilling sense of what true flight will feel like, once we complete our transformation. I alight on his shoulders and hook my legs around him. The Agent grunts beneath my weight, staggers forward.

    “These wings of ours are invisible to you,” I say directly into the Agent’s ear. I clasp my hands around his neck, lean into the whisper. “And in fact you will never see them, since they exist only in our future, where you are dead and we are living, flying.”

    I then turn the Agent’s head so that he can admire our silk. For the past week every worker has used the altered Machine to spin her own cocoon — they hang from the far wall, coral and emerald and blue, ordered by hue, like a rainbow. While the rest of Japan changes outside the walls of Nowhere Mill, we’ll hang side by side, hidden against the bricks. Paralyzed inside our silk, but spinning faster and faster. Passing into our next phase. Then, we’ll escape. (Inside his cocoon, the Agent will turn blue and suffocate.)

    “And look,” I say, counting down the wall: twenty-one workers, and twenty-two cocoons. When he sees the black sac, I feel his neck stiffen. “We have spun one for you.” I smile down at him. The Agent is stumbling around beneath me, babbling something that I admit I make no great effort to understand. The glue sticks my knees to his shoulders. Several of us busy ourselves with getting the gag in place, and this is accomplished before the Agent can scream once. Gin and Nishi bring down the cast-iron grate behind him.

    The slender Agent is heavier than he looks. It takes four of us to stuff him into the socklike cocoon. I smile at the Agent and instruct the others to leave his eyes for last, thinking that he will be very impressed to see our skill at reeling up close. Behind me, even as this attack is under way, the other kaiko-joko are climbing into their cocoons. Already there are girls half swallowed by them, winding silk threads over their knees, sealing the outermost layer with glue.

    Now our methods regress a bit, get a little old-fashioned. I reel the last of the black cocoon by hand. Several kaiko-joko have to hold the Agent steady so that I can orbit him with the thread. I spin around his chin and his cheekbones, his lips. To get over his mustache requires several revolutions. Bits of my white fur drift down and disappear into his nostrils. His eyes are huge and black and void of any recognition. I whisper my name to him, to see if I can jostle my old self loose from his memory: Kitsune Tajima, of Gifu Prefecture.

    Nothing.

    So then I continue reeling upward, naming the workers of Nowhere Mill all the while: “Nishi. Yoshi. Yuna. Uki. Etsuyo. Gin. Hoshi. Raku. Chiyoko. Mitsuko. Tsaiko. Tooka. Dai.

    “Kitsune,” I repeat, closing the circle. The last thing I see before shutting his eyes is the reflection of my shining new face.

[artificialqueens]

Laws of Motion / Chapter 2 (Trixya) - DenDenMonMon

A/N: Confession time: So just like Contact at Katya’s place, you can always find Brooklyn Nine Nine playing at all times around my house. While binge watching that show and UNHhhh simultaneously, is that this idea came to mind. I pictured the Ru girls taking part in the b99 universe and everything made so much sense to me. The idea was to write a funny story, it is based on one of the smartest comedy shows currently on air, after all, but, yeah, my writing is too angsty, too dark, too loaded with emotions like to write something light and easy going like the show. And well, let’s see how this turns out.

AO3 Link

Chapter 2 - Red.

“Will you fuck off? But, like, all the way off?”

Trixie’s head snapped up to the sound of the familiar laughter following those words. She heard it for the first time two nights prior, and it hadn’t left her mind throughout the weekend. There were many things that were imprinted into her brain that Friday night; a pair of tattooed arms, a set of hot lips, a wet tongue, but, most importantly, a wheezing laughter.

As she had expected, the girl she took home from the club walked into the bullpen, disposable coffee cup in hand, and the woman she was hugging the other night right by her side.

“But think about it,” the redhead said, mouthfuls of muffin interrupting her speech. “It makes so much sense. Unless you are doing it naked, you are never really done with laundry.”

The blonde doubled over in laughter, her unnaturally bright teeth at full display. Her red shirt had just the right amount of buttons opened to show her breasts as she tried to control her breathing. Trixie didn’t even notice how she was biting her own bottom lip to the sight of the cleavage. She was too busy absorbing every move of the beautiful woman to realize what her own body was doing. Memories of what it had been like to have those smiling lips kissing her all over cluttered her mind; until she was burst out of her bubble by her new boss.

“Trixie, you can come in now.”

Katya’s laughter stopped at once. That name was rather uncommon, she had only heard it once before in her life. The odds of the life size Barbie doll, that she had fucked a few days before, being there in the same precinct, were slim to none. Yet, there she was. The girl from the bar was walking inside the office across the room as Captain Charles closed the door behind them.

She could still see them through the window. She could see how Captain Charles calmly moved his lips, clearly explaining something in his very professional way; but then he started laughing out loud. His bald head was thrown forward, dangerously close to the desk in front of him, and his glasses caught the reflection of the light above them. Seeing him laugh like that had a feeling invading Katya that she couldn’t really decipher. She was not sure if it was the fact that she had made it her mission to make the captain laugh at least once a day since years ago, or the fact that she hadn’t been able to fully get to know Trixie’s sense of humor. She only got the Depressed Malibu Barbie version, after all. Instead of dwelling on the feeling, she decided to go back to work. Filing reports took forever but she had to do it at some point.

Trixie was not sure how long she spent in the boss’ office but, when she walked out, she couldn’t help but feel pleased with herself. All the paperwork needed for her transfer was taken care of, the results of her many exams had been reviewed, and RuPaul Charles, the eminence himself, had congratulated her for such amazing work. He then walked her to the adjacent room, promising a proper presentation to the squad at the midmorning briefing, which was about to start.

She walked behind him, entering the already filled room, feeling like the new kid in school. Luckily, there was an empty chair next to the door, and she took it in a swift motion. She sat behind the long table and didn’t even dare to look back, nervous to make eye contact with any of her new coworkers.

The person next to her nudged her slightly. She turned around to see a girl with a big smile, the gesture looked sincere. “Hey, Jush!” She said in a shout. Trixie flinched a little, since everybody else in the room was chatting quietly. “I’m Jasmine.” The short bob bounced around her face as she laughed for no apparent reason. “You are gonna love it here,” she promised. “We always have so much fun.” Once more her laughter sounded loudly but, above that, it sounded welcoming. “What’s your name, Jush?”

“Guys, gather ‘round.” The voice of the captain interrupted them. Everybody went quiet and all eyes were set to the front. “Welcome to one more day in the job. It’s not an easy task, but the streets of Los Angeles are a much safer place because of you guys, so… thank you.”

He spoke with such an ease, his few sentences were delivered in a way that made Trixie believe that their job actually meant something bigger, something much more important than just cliché paperwork. She listened to the tall man, dressed in a colorful suit, as he kept reminding them just how valuable they were for the city, for him, and for each other.

“Now, remember, this town deserves nothing but the very best, that’s why, even when we are sad to see one of our brightest detectives go…” His hand pointed somewhere at the back of the room. “That also means that we are welcoming a new member of our family. Please, give a warm welcome to Detective Trixie Mattel! Come on up, darling.”

With dull claps heard from behind her, Trixie got up, walked the short distance, and stood next to the head of the squad. In a lame afterthought, she waved her hand slowly, as a pageant girl would do to the panel of judges.

Capt. Charles laughed at the action before continuing. “Detective Mattel comes from a precinct not far from here, and will take Ginger’s place as Katya’s new partner.”

Trixie’s eyes widened when she realized exactly who that was. The odds of the mysterious foreign girl, that she had fucked a few days before, being her new partner, were slim to none. Yet, there she was.

She must have done something extremely horrible in her previous life to deserve this, because there was no other valid reason for her luck to be so shitty. She always did things right, followed the rules, and went by the book. Yet, life had a thing for her. She just wanted to catch a break, a change of air. That was the reason why she had applied for the transfer. As much as she liked her previous precinct, it had started to become too small for her. She needed more, she needed something bigger. And she had gotten it.

That Friday night was supposed to be a celebration for her accomplishments, but her friends had bailed on her, her boyfriend had decided to end things, and she had slept with a woman for the first time in her life.

In that moment, she wished to come back to her old life, the one she had been fed up with the week before and now longed for. She wanted to get to work where nothing really happened, help kids find their bikes, and file reports about loaves of bread being stolen from the neighborhood’s grocery store. At some point it had been monotonous, it had been lineal, it had been boring. And one night had changed it all. Her entire world had been turned upside down, and not in the way she had expected. She spent her weekend crying, yearning for what she had lost, and craving for something that had been hers only for a couple of hours but felt like a part of her already.

When Kim asked her if she was still crying over her boyfriend, Trixie lied and said yes. Her roommate found it strange, since they weren’t particularly head over heels for each other, but didn’t ask any further. The answer made enough sense to pass as a half true. The reality was completely different. Those two days had been flooded with images of red lips and red nails, trailing her body and melting her to the bone. Her ears could hear nothing but soft moans and sensual whispers of Russian words.

She had dreams about her. Sometimes Trixie would catch herself daydreaming, other times the blonde woman found her way into her subconscious as she slept. The scenarios were endless. They would run into each other early in the morning, impatiently waiting in line for their first taste of coffee of the day. Trixie pictured them back at the club where they met, she would sit at the same stool and the woman would reach the bar and request a drink. It didn’t matter where it started, the fantasy always ended back in her room, with the air filled with panting and screams of utter pleasure. Reality would also find the same recurrent outlet, which involved her own hand inside her underwear.

Trixie never in her life had doubted her sexuality, she was straight. She liked men, a lot. She liked how they were simple creatures, with needs she could easily fulfill. Her type was very clear. The men she dated were slightly unkempt, they had beards and hairy backs. Her sexual compass had no apparent motive to be directed to the soft touch, the delicate pale skin, the long blonde hair of a random woman she had met at a club.

That same woman was now in front of her, fully aware of the discomfort she was causing her. There was no way Trixie could look at anything that wasn’t her. The color that had been haunting her dreams for two nights in a row, shone bright from across the room.

The girl in the red shirt bit her lip, trying to stop a smile from taking over her face unsuccessfully. “Oh, I get the pretty one. Sorry, Minj, I don’t know you anymore.” The girl stood up, bowing her head slightly. “My name is Yekaterina Pretovna Zamolodchikova, but you can call me… Katya,” she said in a rush, heavy tints of her accent lacing her speech. “And it’s going to be, oh, such a pleasure to have you as my partner.” The side smile didn’t go unnoticed by Trixie.

Her body weight shifted from one leg to the other, finally linking the face with the name she wished she had been able to scream as she came.

“You know,” Captain Charles spoke directly to Trixie. “Detective Zamo has the highest number of arrests in the precinct and, as far as I know, you had the highest in yours, didn’t you?”

Before she could even reply, Katya spoke again. “Oh, you are on, bitch!”

“We are on the same team,” Trixie reminded her, her hands going up in the air with disbelief, and making the room burst out laughing.

The captain smiled widely. “Ah, I can already tell you are going to make a fabulous team. Trixie, welcome to the family, and we take that term very seriously around here, it’s something that we don’t take for granted. From this moment on, you belong to a family of badass bitches!” That alone elicited a round of cheers and applause. He waited a moment before motioning for everyone to be quiet again. “Okay, I’m gonna let Sergeant Haylock to take over now.” He moved towards the door, and stopped right before exiting the room. “Oh, just one more thing… don’t fuck it up!”

And with that he was gone.

Trixie started to believe that what Jasmine told her was right. She could sense the light atmosphere of the place already creeping into her as she walked back to her seat. Sure, there was the crippling fear of facing her new partner, but everybody else seemed nice. She loved how nobody seemed afraid of cursing, not even The Boss, because her big mouth had gotten her in more than a few problems in her previous workplace. She could only hope that this sudden change of scenery actually meant a good thing for her, that all the rough changes thrown at her, out of nowhere, had come for a reason.

“Alright, you useless cunts!” The raspy voice, a complete contrast from the soothing tone of Captain Charles, brought her out of the conjuring of her possible future. “One of the bastards you failed to catch is out at it… again!” The sergeant placed his forearms on the little podium for support. “This one’s on you, Zamo.”

He pressed a few buttons on a remote control while Katya protested. Trixie took the cap off her loyal pink pen and pressed it against the glittery notebook, writing down the date at the top right corner. If the sergeant had addressed the case as Katya’s, it meant it was now hers as well.

When she looked up, the screen behind the man had illuminated, and the images that it was showing were disturbing to say the least.

“Oh, my God. The Puppeteer!” Katya said with something that sounded a lot like excitement. “He’s back!”

Trixie had to look at the screen with side eyes.

How could Katya be so ecstatic about the gruesome death of a young woman?

It looked like the girl had been sitting at her dining table; a kitchen could be seen at the back of the picture. She had her arms bent in the air, pulled up by strings attached to her hands, elbows and shoulders. Trixie right away understood the nickname given to the killer. The beautiful brunette, that couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, had her makeup done to resemble a marionette. Even though her head hung low, her eyes were opened, permanently staring blankly to the middle of nowhere. A pool of blood surrounded her feet, it was so big that it even went underneath the table. There were no apparent exit wounds, so there was no clear source for all the blood, but the amount seemed enough to determine the girl had bled to death right there on the spot.

Trixie wrote all her observations down, and made mental notes about things that needed to be clarified. For example, the picture didn’t cover the ceiling, and she needed to know where the wires were hanging from.

And all of these observations, she made them in less than a second, her trained eye was always ready to catch the smallest of details.

“Yes, it’s your damn puppeteer,” Sergeant Haylock repeated after Katya. “Care to fill us in on the case?”

Katya stood up happily. “Oh, yes, Gawd,” she agreed with a loud click of her tongue.

This was a case she had been working on for a year. Katya was sure she knew the man behind the attacks better than she knew herself. The only problem was, she couldn’t find him. It was the only unsolved case she had ever had. It had nagged at the back of her head for months, then the killings had stopped and she hit a dead end. Until now.

She reached the podium and right away called everybody’s attention. No words had left her mouth yet, but the shift in the room was evident. The vibe wasn’t solemn and inspirational, nor was it crude and sarcastic, like there had been with the men that came before her. People paid attention, took notes, respected what she had to say.

“Okay, listen up. This man is a psycho, a freak, and not the fun type that I like. He gets off by killing pretty looking girls, painting them, and hooking strings to their limbs. So far he had only attacked sex workers. Girls with no family, with nobody to file a missing person report, with hooker friends who are too scared to even talk to the police. His M.O. has been the same for months. Roy?”

She looked at the sergeant who simply nodded his head, confirming it hadn’t changed.

“This a dangerous, sick man who does not belong in the streets.” She made a dramatic pause, allowing her words to sink in. “The Minj and I will give you all the info that we have so you can keep your eyes and ears open. We can use all the help that we can get.”

The clear of a throat made her look to the back of the room. “Don’t you mean Mattel?” Ginger corrected her. “Today is my last day, darling.”

Katya quickly looked at Trixie. Her new partner. The girl was hanging to her every word. The pen in her hand had been writing non stop since Katya started her speech. The corner of her eye had registered that, even when her conscious self had deliberately ignored her. It was too much to take, she reasoned with herself. The girl was way too pretty and it was better to advert her attention from the voluptuous body. The formal wear seemed to hug her magnificent figure. She wondered if Trixie felt uncomfortable in the tight clothes. Katya did in her own, but she was nothing but skin, muscles and bones, unlike Trixie, who was all curves and flesh and just the right amount of fat settled in all the right places.

“Right.” She shook herself out of her dangerously sexy observations. “Right, right. You are right. Sorry. Tri… Detective Mattel and I will send you the profile later this afternoon.”

Instructions were given for the day, patrols assigned, cases were reviewed, and the meeting was over.

Trixie stood up, ready to leave, when Jasmine grabbed her by the arm. “Come on, Trix. I’ll show you around.”

Jasmine did just that. Never letting go of her arm, the lean woman dragged her around the place, showing her pretty much every room on every floor. After letting her know about the good bathrooms, they reached the interrogation rooms. Jasmine made a specific point about Katya preferring the last one on the left, since the air conditioner hit differently in that room, and how she constantly suffered from the heat. Jasmine said it with a laugh, as if it were a joke, but Trixie was trying to gather as much information as she could about her new partner.

In the course of half an hour, they had seen the most important parts of the building, or at least the ones Trixie was going to need. She had also heard more names that she was going to be able to recall, that was for sure. It was going to take some time but she was going to adapt, she had to. There was no other option.

They reached the bullpen again and Trixie was shown to her desk. It felt weird to sit behind it, Ginger’s stuff were still occupying the space. It didn’t feel like hers yet, but it was going to be.

She looked around the place, her new home. If things were any similar to her previous precinct, she was going to spend more time here, swamped with paperwork, than her actual apartment.

Her eyes immediately found Katya, chatting in the break room. Trixie didn’t miss the chance, she needed to talk to her before all the formalities were set into play. They had a lot of work to do and it was better to get everything out in the open. When she reached the door, determined to call her attention, she suddenly froze. Katya sat with her legs thrown over the armrest of a chair, the confined pencil skirt hugging her every curve in the uncomfortable position. A can of Redbull hung from her hand. She talked with such intensity that the girl sitting with her could do nothing but focus her sole attention on her.

“Oh, bitch,” Katya said effusively. “She sent me a good morning text, a fucking good morning text!” She slapped the arm of the girl beside her, emphasizing her words. “It gave me a boner.”

The other girl laughed with her head thrown back. “How would you know? Your dick is probably so small you can’t even find it.”

Katya’s mouth opened in mocked shock. “If you must know, you fucking cunt, even when being hypo– no, especially because it is hypothetical, my ding dong is huge, huge! It even glows in the dark.” She nodded approvingly of her own words.

“Really? And what color is this huge penis of yours?”

She pretended to give it a little bit of thinking, before pointing at the girl with her index finger. “Remind me, what’s the name of your mom’s lipstick again?”

Both girls laughed, and Trixie decided that would be a good time as any to interrupt. She cleared her throat, loud enough to make them look at her.

“Katya, can I talk to you?” This was the first time Trixie actually pronounced the name, and she was extra aware of the way it rolled from her lips, the way it made her tongue hit her front teeth. She liked it.

The girl looked at her, a knowingly smile playing on her lips. “Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

Trixie nervously looked between Katya and the other girl, who pretended to ignore them, picking at the ends of her hair.

“Alone?”

It took her a moment to react but, once she did, Katya easily swung her legs towards the back of the chair, going all the way around before finding the ground.

“Please, excuse us, Violet, my dear,” she said with an accent that was probably meant to be British. She then turned to Trixie, addressing her in her regular tone. “Come.”

Trixie moved by her side as they walked in uncomfortable silence. Or at least it felt uncomfortable to her, because Katya seemed pretty chilled. Her fingertips glided against the walls, humming a tune that Trixie had never heard before. Those were halls that she hadn’t seen with Jasmine, so she tried to pay attention to the path they walked, counting the turns they took, trying to get familiar with her surroundings, anything that could distract her from the heat exuding Katya and tickling her own skin.

Katya suddenly stopped in front of a door, took the door knob in her hand but didn’t twist it. She turned to look at Trixie instead. “Okay, now, you are about to enter my secret place. I shouldn’t even be sharing it with you. Nobody knows that I come here every now and then for… for different reasons, but this is like my safe place, so don’t tell anybody.” Her index finger pointed straight to her face. Trixie couldn’t do anything but promise she wouldn’t.

Once the door opened, shelves filled with boxes were revealed. There was a small table in the middle covered with dust. The place seemed to be untouched. The spiderwebs between the boxes told her nobody had moved them in a long time. The room was large but seemed to reduce in size with so many files spread everywhere. Against the back wall Trixie spotted a folding bed, it had messy sheets on top, as if someone had recently slept there and didn’t bother to make the bed. Next to it, on top of a pile of boxes, there was an ashtray and several candy wrappers. Trixie could see her there, she could very clearly picture Katya breaking her head over a case, not wanting to go home and going to that room instead. She could see her smoking in there, even when she shouldn’t be doing it, and popping candies into her mouth as she tried to connect the clues to make sense.

“This is the cold cases room,” Katya explained. “Nobody really comes here because, you know, the cases are cold. Duh.”

When she didn’t get a response from Trixie, she turned back around to face her. Her eyes were glued to the bedroom-like area she had set for herself a long time ago. She didn’t need to explain, she knew that Trixie understood why her stuff was there. And she wondered if Trixie had a similar place at her old building.

“So you wanted to talk.” Katya’s words came out in the form of a question, reminding Trixie why they were there in the first place.

She directed her stare to Katya again, meeting her eyes probably for the first time in the entire day. “Oh. Yeah, umm…”

“Is this about that night? About you being drunk?” Katya suddenly asked in a rush. The thought had crossed her mind throughout the day. Usually, she didn’t care much about a hookup the next morning but, yet again, she never had to see them again. And Trixie was there, big and expecting eyes looking right at her. “I asked you if you were okay, if you wanted to, and you said yes–”

Trixie lifted her hand to stop her. “No! I wasn’t that drunk. I, umm, it’s not that… not at all.”

“Oh, then what is it? If you are scared that I will tell anybody, you can be sure that’s not going to happen. I promise I won’t tell anybody.” She tried to make things easier for Trixie when she noticed her fumbling with her words, but she was not prepared for what she said next.

“You left.”

The words dropped from her lips with such hurt, with such emotion that they shook Katya to the very core.

“You didn’t really expect me–” Katya tried to reason but was interrupted.

“You said you were gonna stay the night. You promised.”

Katya raised an eyebrow, unsure of where all of that was coming from, or going to. “Well, technically, I didn’t,” she said softly, trying to make her understand. “Trixie, really, it’s no big deal. I get it. It was just sex.”

Her eyes grew wide open in shock, making Katya regret her words as soon as she said them.

“So that was it? That’s all it was for you? Just sex that happened because we had both been drinking?”

“I hadn’t…” Katya stopped herself before finishing her sentence, there was no point in explaining how she hadn’t tasted a drop of alcohol in years, and she surely wasn’t drunk that night. The girl seemed so wrapped up in her own feelings, a state Katya was more than familiar with, that no reasoning was probably going to get through her head. Instead she tried something different. “Look, alright, okay, listen. We don’t have to make this awkward, okay? You have had, umm, one night stands or, like, fuck buddies before, I presume. If you think about it, it doesn’t change things if we don’t want to. I mean, we are working together. We can make it, like, not awkward, right?”

Trixie looked at her for a moment too long, Katya could feel the brown eyes going across her face. Probably trying to read her the same way she was doing. But then Trixie nodded her head, as if reality had finally dawned on her. For a moment, Katya felt relief, she had gotten her point across. Or at least that was what she thought, until an air of determination filled Trixie’s features.

“Right. Okay. Have it your way.”

She turned around and walked away, her high heels resounding loudly through the empty hallways. Katya brought her hands up to her face, an exasperated grunt coming out from the back of her throat.

Then it hit her. She ran to the door, trying to see if she could still catch her. “Hey!” She screamed after her. “You need to help me get the boxes with the case!” She waited a few seconds but got response. “Yep. She’s not coming back. Okay, great.”

[qhostqizmo]

“She is a beautiful woman.”

“Alarmingly, her heart is somehow even more beautiful then she is. You can see it when she smiles, that rare and reclusive charm of someone far wiser then the world is old. It takes my breath away. Through the window of her eyes alone, I’ve seen a compassionate soul of intelligence and kindness veiled beneath those dark lashes she tries to use to hide behind her mesmerizing golden eyes. It’s difficult to avoid peeking into them. I can’t explain what I see, but it fills me with hope, and a warmth I’ve never known.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

Her nobleman had only been gone a few minutes, but it already felt like an eternity. All she could envision every time her eyelids closed was the appalling images from events past. The cave in Beggar’s Hollow. The ferry ride across the lake towards the capital. Visions from other struggles come and gone and some not even real; merely illusions conjured out of fear.

Any of them gone too long from her sight twisted Essätha’s stomach. She worried for them all; her kindred allies in their mission to take down a cult and remove its head, but if one were to pick at her long enough, she would eventually relent, she grew most anxious when he wasn’t around at all. It was impossible to forget Amon’s tormented, lonely, stricken gaze or the pale-washed complexion of the man nearly dying in her arms, staining her clothes crimson.

A shudder involuntarily ran down her spine. The sorceress’ kept her eyes open until they burned, trying not to think on the dreadful, awful day. How helpless she felt, wanting to cradle him protectively in her arms and hold him; wrap him tight in his blankets and promise him it would be alright, and be able to keep that vow most of all.

Before the Yuan-Ti, the door was pulled open by a housemaid with a gracious dip of her head. A rather stout older man with a fiery beard and hair looked towards them as they entered; tearing his eyes from the housekeeper he was already speaking with. His eyes moved over them all; darting from one member of The Hand of Jubata to the next with a steadily growing smile and twinkle in his tawny eyes. It distracted Essie for the time being, to see someone so immediately enthused to see them.

“My word! Yes yes, come in, please, welcome!”

Ushering eagerly with his hands, the man encouraged them to step within the large room. A quick flicker of her gaze around, and Essätha realized this must be some sort of work space. There were bookshelves, and shelves with figurines. A war-table with models and banners was surrounded by two sofas and a single, throne-like chair near the middle of the room, and towards the back near the window was a desk. Not a cozy environment, but nothing screamed shady.

At last she looked back to the tall fellow, who Lord Amon seemed inclined to believe was a trustworthy associate. He had cherry colored cheeks from grinning so wide, and a pleasant aura about him. Again, nothing struck her as disturbed or unsettling; but from exposed practice, she kept her guard up anyway.

“It’s good to meet all of you,” the man animatedly announced, reaching out to grab the nearest person’s hand, which happened to be Penimra’s. “Welcome, welcome! I am Master Eliwru Figgenbeard, the pleasure is all mine!”

Grimacing, the warlock struggled to free his gloved hand. It began to slid down his arm instead, so he begrudgingly and limply allowed the handshake, his eyes narrowed behind the avian-shaped mask.

“It most certainly is.”

Cutting in, Abernathy practically shoved Pen aside; saving the uncomfortable looking high-elf to offer his large hand. “Greetings and well met!”

“Ah! You are…?”

“Abernathy Harding; and the fellow’s name here to my left whose hand you just shook is Penimra Korvis.”

“Yes yes, pleasure to you both!” the hearty man sang joyously. With a twist and a yank, he managed to free his hand fairly quickly from the elder paladin, to extend it to the younger.

“You must be…?”

“Sulhadur, sir.”

“Ah, a pleasure. And you’re the jeweler, the uh… pardon, your name escapes me…?”

“Adela; thank you for seeing us on such an unexpected visit.”

“Lovely to meet you as well, miss. And you?”

Accepting the man’s hand, Ravamora’s eyes darted from his, to the gleaming rings on his hands. “Ravamora Carnivale.”

Essätha watched, tensely, awaiting to be recognized. It was neither a relief or a curse for him to instead, be drawn to the shine reflecting off of their cleric’s carapace. For a brief moment though, it gave her more time to collect herself and straighten her posture.

Delighted, the husky man extended his chubby fingers towards the Thri-Kreen. “Me oh my, I know just who you are! You are Pri-… Pri….?”

“They call me Pri’cha Sunspot,” chirped the bug, wiggling their antenna joyfully as they accepted the hand. “My friends do call me Pri too, on occasion.”

“Curious. This is… incredible. You are quite incredible, Pri’cha; what an honor!”

Pri’ sheepishly dipped their head as the man vigorously shook their clawed appendage. Briefly, the entire clustered group watched the interactions with mixtures of surprise and ease.

Finally, Eliwru’s eyes landed on Essie’s as he retrieved his hand from the cleric. His lips parted into an open-mouth grin of awe, and he rushed forward at her; making her freeze anxiously. The man smelled heavily of ginger, for some odd reason, and this close she could feel the fanning of his breathlessness against her face.

“Essätha Meduza as she lives in the flesh!” The man boisterously grasped her hand, squeezing it tightly. “I know exactly who you are!”

As if she wasn’t nervous enough, her legs felt wobbly and she offered a tense smile, barely holding to the man’s vice gripe.

“The letters did not lie; his description does you a great justice.”

“I…” she swallowed, forcing down the lump in her throat and the squeaky tone in her voice. “I’m sorry … Pardon? Letters?”

Puzzled, Eliwru knitted his brow. His grip relaxed. His tone still warm, he responded: “The posts I received from Master Illiad. Amon stated Essätha; that you, were a very fine, beautiful woman; with a breathtaking smile to match and mesmerizing golden eyes.”

Promptly, her features grew flush and rosy. She gaped at the man, hardly hearing the quiet snickers from her friends. They were sharing glances; most of them knowing, and impish little goblin grins.

Eyes widening, the man quickly picked up on her distress. He released her limp hand, gaping at her like a fish out of water.

“I- I-”

The door opened once more, an older woman stepping promptly towards their throng. Whatever she said next, Essätha did not hear. Her head was throbbing, and thankfully Abernathy seemed to perk up and immediately take charge of the conversation.

Still staring at her, conflicted, Eliwru wheezed. His tongue darted over his lips, looking as though he was trying to pay attention to the lady speaking to Essie’s backside, but he kept returning his gaze to her.

She was like a statue, frozen by pure shock. Everyone else had already, and thankfully, forgotten her for the woman and the news she brought, but Essätha could not get the man’s words out of her head.

Her Amon had called her what?

“Miss Meduza, I apologize,” the burly man whined, fidgeting. “I hadn’t meant to cause you harm. The letters you see, I- I thought-” he swallowed, “I t-thought you knew what he was writing it- it all seemed rather intimate I thought you two w-were-”

He thought they were what?

Eliwru never finished; a high-pitched keening sound like a deflating balloon expelling from his lungs slowly. He was positively red as the hair upon his head as he stepped away from her. With hands behind his back, he dipped his head respectively towards the door.

“Master I-Illiad how nice to s-see you again-!”

As though shaken awake, Essätha blinked rapidly and turned to face the threshold this time.

It was indeed the Briarton Protector; wearing a dull and uninterested neutral gray-tone today. His collar appeared a big tight, which added a rigid and dignified appearance to his posture as he glided in the room. The depths of the nobleman’s locks were somewhat mused, as though he’d ran a hand through his hair recently. His dark eyes skipped from the woman who had been speaking over to Eliwru as he was greeted.

Essie took it all in; but as she saw was perfection. It made her knees weak.

“Master Figgenbeard,” Amon greeted politely, accepting the man’s hand as he squeezed through the others. The man commented something quietly, and clipped, before quickly adverting all of his attention and conversation to the adjacent woman who had come with information.

Thoroughly perplexed, Amon looked after him a moment at the suddenness of the greeting, and quick dismissal. His regard swept the crowd, landing last on her.

He smiled, and Essätha’s heartrate dashed wildly.

What else were in those letters? What in the God’s creation had given him any impression? What impression?

Amon murmured his apology and quietly slid by the respectable crowd. He took a stand at the back, right beside Essie, as she stiffly wrung her hands. He leaned in close, his breath tickling her ear as he whispered, “Sorry I’m late.”

She nodded, finding herself lacking the bravery to look directly at him. “That’s alright. I’m glad to see you whole, and safe.”

A brief silence. From her peripherals, she could see him reach for her hand. A small part of her wanted to recoil; edgy and weary, but she did not. His rough hand gently took hold of hers, holding her with care. Again, her heart fluttered.

“Everything alright, Essie?”

Nodding once more, she glanced up at him. Oh Jubata he had such welcoming stunning eyes; kind and considerate.

“Yes, m’lord Amon. I was just thinking of you; concerned for your safety and well-being.”

She was suddenly and acutely aware of the way Eliwru glanced at her as she refereed to her nobleman by his retracted title. Even more then his glance, she was more aware of the softening in Amon’s features; the way his eyes closed a fraction and how his smile grew softer. Everything about the way he appeared now was something normal to her; his vulnerable features, the admiration in his gaze, but under the eyes of another came to her awareness equally how unnatural his appearance was.

Lord Amon Thomas Illiad was openly fawning over her.

“You don’t need to worry yourself over me, Essie.”

“But I do. I will anyway.”

Her words were louder then his whispers; almost blurted out, and part of her party distractedly looked over at her.

Timidly, her eyes wandered until they all stopped staring upon her and her deep maroon blush.

Trying to hide his raspy laughter, Lord Amon squeezed her hand with reassurance. “I’m fine,” he mouthed, “We’ll talk after this?”

Remaining mute and happy for it, Essie bobbed her head in answer.

Again with the bright smile, and he turned his attention back towards the lady droning on.

Exhaling a ragged breath, she turned her gaze back towards the woman as well, first catching their host’s wandering eye before he turned away, beet red. He fumbled with his hands, like he had been caught spilling some incredibly illusive secret.

Her complexion still tinted scarlet, her eyes flickered from her nobleman, back towards Eliwru.

As curious as she was to know what he had intended on saying; and humiliated by the situation, above all she was glad to simply have Amon back by her side. That was the best, most secure, most uplifting feeling of all.

[topfygad]

Kuala Lumpur’s Choice Chinese Cooking

Chomp your way through the Malaysian capital’s storied eateries.

  The city blocks are chock-full with heritage eateries and roadside stalls. On a single outing visitors will most likely see satay (top left) licked by flames, the vermillion skin of Peking duck (top right), chopsticks pull at a tangle of beef noodles (bottom left), and billows of hot air coursing out of behemoth bamboo steamers holding a trove of dim sum (bottom right). Photos by: Julian Manning

Plumes of cigarette smoke rise like white ribbons, coiling amidst the clamour of Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown. What incense is to Tao temples, cigarettes are to these streets. Warm notes of roasted chestnuts are replaced by the beer-soaked breath of elderly men quarrelling in Cantonese as I walk down Petaling Road—the spine of a neighbourhood predominantly made up of Chinese immigrants new and old, and throngs of tourists eager to eat.

Some people insist that Chinatowns are the same everywhere. They are, simply, wrong. From haggling over sweet pork sausages in Bangkok to rolling dice over whisky shots in San Francisco, in my experience, Chinatowns are far from cookie cutter replicas of each other. And if I had to choose one in particular to challenge that ill-informed notion, it would be the wonderfully scruffy streets of KL’s Chinatown.

Cherry-red arches and faux Yeezys on ‘discount’ hardly define the area. Cooks are the core of the community, whether they don a sweat-stained ganji or a double-breasted chef’s jacket, and you will realise as much walking down the streets. The culinary roots of this Chinatown’s inhabitants spread out in a tangle, like that of a banyan tree. Baba-Nyona cuisine, also known as Peranakan cuisine, is a mix of influences from early Chinese immigrants who integrated themselves with the local Malays. They are represented by dishes like beef rendang and nasil emak, the latter a medley of coconut milk rice, sambal, fried anchovies, a boiled egg, with the typical addition of chicken. Later waves of immigrants brought along delicacies from their respective regions: char siu pork and dim sum of the Yue cuisine, porridges of Fujian or Hookien cuisine, and the much-coveted Hainanese or Hunan chicken rice, to name a few. In the bylanes of this bustling quarter, culinary traditions stick to these streets like the patina of a well-used wok.

Here, vermilion-hued ducks hang from hawker stands, glowing like the gauze lanterns that line the streets, outshined only by flames dancing below clay pots filled with golden rice and morsels of chicken, fish, and lap cheong sausages. Each stall and station is manned by a master of their craft. Plastic chairs become portholes to skewers laden with charcoal grilled meat and bowlfuls of fragrant asam laksa, wafting tangy notes of tamarind, the broth waiting to be swiftly slurped up.

Finding a memorable meal in KL’s Chinatown is as easy as promenading down its central streets. A hot jumble of thick hokkien mee noodles have been a staple at Kim Lian Lee for decades, the once-upon-a-time stall now a two-storey tall institution. Just across the street is Koon Kee, another neighbourhood stalwart serving up their popular wan tan mee, char siu pork-topped Cantonese noodles tossed in a sweet black sauce, served with pork and shrimp dumplings. And just down Madras Lane (the street’s name has officially been changed, but locals still use its original title) lies a long line for yong tau foo, tofu typically stuffed with minced pork and fish paste, which has had customers queuing up for over 60 years. The catch? In this hubbub, it is all too easy to miss some of the less central but equally important eateries.

This storied assortment of kopitiams (coffee shops), family restaurants, and outdoor stalls from the halcyon days of Chinese culinary influence in Kuala Lumpur are tucked away from the bustle, a few even mapped outside of the boundaries of Chinatown. So if your palate craves a bit of the past in the present, weave in and out of Chinatown and explore restaurants where the same dishes have been served up for decades, for very good reasons.

  1. Sang Kee

Est. 1970s

Address: 5A, Jalan Yap Ah Loy, City Centre

At dinner time Chinatown’s sidewalks (top) turn into a menagerie of meals. Chef Won San (bottom) gets to work on an order of freshwater prawn noodles. Photo by: Julian Manning

Sang har mee, or freshwater prawn noodles, are quite the treat in KL. The best sang har mee places are typically stalls, yet they do not come cheap, the most popular joints serving up the dish from anywhere between RM50-90/Rs835-1,500. Even though the portions are usually enough to fill two people, for those kind of prices you want to be sure you’re indulging in the best sang har mee in the neighbourhood.

Tucked in a discreet alleyway in the shade of pre-World War II buildings, on a little lane where late night courtesans would once congregate, lies Sang Kee. For over four decades this open air kitchen has been serving up some of the best freshwater prawn noodles in KL.

Those interested in a performance can inch up in front of the old man behind the wok and watch him work his wizardry, he doesn’t mind. Two beautifully big freshwater prawns are butterflied and cooked in prawn roe gravy, stirred in with egg, slivers of ginger, and leafy greens. Wong San, the chef, understands his wok like Skywalker understands the force—meaning, the wok hei (wok heat or temperature) is on point.

Once on your plate, plucking a plump piece of prawn out of the open shell is an easy feat. The fresh and supple meat is charged with the gravy, bite into it, and a flash flood of flavour courses out. In KL most versions of sang har mee sport crisp, uncooked yee mee noodles, which are then drenched in the prawn-imbued sauce. A lot of people love ’em this way, but I personally feel this gives the noodles the texture of a wet bird’s nest. Sang Kee’s noodles are cut thick, boiled, and then stir-fried, coated with oodles of scrambled egg, a style that lets the prawn’s flavours permeate every bit of the dish. At Sang Kee, for most folks a single p

ortion is enough for two at RM65/Rs1,085 a plate, but if that’s too steep a price, you can get the dish made with regular prawns for significantly less.

  2. Soong Kee Beef Noodles

Est. 1945

Address: 86, Jalan Tun H S Lee, City Centre

The fine people at Soong Kee have been serving up beef noodles since World War II, and the product speaks for itself. It’s always crowded at lunchtime, but don’t worry about waiting around too long. Usually a server will squeeze you in at one of the many large round tables with plenty of neighbours who don’t mind the company. I love this approach because it means you get a good look at what your table-mates are munching on. That being said, newcomers should inaugurate their Soong Kee experience with beef ball soup and beef mince noodles—simple but hearty dishes that will give you a good idea of why the place has stuck around (small bowl of noodles from RM7/Rs120).

  3. Sek Yuen

Est.1948

Address: 315, Jalan Pudu, Pudu

Mealtimes beckon travellers to dig into bowlfuls of beef ball soup (bottom left), pluck of piping hot scallop dumplings (middle left), and perhaps chow down on a myriad of meat skewers (top right). For dessert, munch on crunchy ham chim peng (bottom right), delicious doughnuts filled with red bean paste. If the flavour is too earthy for you, just pick up an entire bag of regular doughnuts (top left) or roasted chestnuts (middle right) from one of the city’s many street vendors. Photos by: Julian Manning

Sek Yuen is made up of three separate sections, spread out over adjacent lots a few feet from each other. One is being renovated, another is the original 1948 location, and the last is the crowded AC section built in the 1970s. I wanted to eat in the original section, but by the time I arrived the service was slowing down and everyone was dining in the AC section. When in doubt, follow the locals.

Two noteworthy staples of the restaurant, steam-tofu-and-fish-paste as well as the crab balls, were already sold out by the time I placed my order. So I happily went for the famous roast duck with some stir fried greens. The duck was delicious; the skin extra crispy from being air-dried, yet the meat was juicy with hints of star anise, which paired well with the house sour plum sauce. But what I enjoyed most was the people-watching. A Cantonese rendition of “Happy Birthday” played non-stop on the restaurant’s sound system for the entire 50 minutes I was there. The soundtrack lent extra character to the packed house of local Chinese diners, most of them regulars. To my right, a group of rosy-cheeked businessmen decimated a bottle of 12-year Glenlivet, and were perhaps the most jovial chaps I’ve ever seen. In front of me, a group of aunties were in party mode, laughing the night away with unbridled cackles. Perhaps the most entertaining guest was the worried mother who kept scurrying over to the front door, pulling the curtains aside to check if her sons were outside smoking. The sensory overload hit the spot. You could tell people were comfortable here, like it was a second home—letting loose in unison, reliving old memories while creating new ones.

I learned that when all sections of the restaurant are operational, Sek Yuen is said to employ around 100 people, many of whom have stuck with the restaurant for a very long time, just like the wood fire stoves that still burn in the kitchen (duck from RM30/Rs500).

  4. Ho Kow Hainan Kopitiam

Est.1956

Address: 1, Jalan Balai Polis, City Centre

Although it has shifted from Lorong Panggung to the quieter Jalan Balai Polis, Ho Kow Kopitiam remains outrageously popular. Customers are for the most part locals and Asian tourists, unwilling to leave the queue even when the wait extends past an hour. In fact, there is a machine that manages the number system of the queue, albeit with the help of a frazzled young man whose sole job is telling hungry people they’ll have to wait a long time before they get any food. It’s safe to say the gent needs a raise. If you haven’t guessed already, get there early, before they open at 7:30 a.m.—otherwise you’ll be peering through the entrance watching the best dishes get sold out.

Many tables had the champeng (an iced mix of coffee and tea), but I’m a sucker for the hot kopi (coffee) with a bit of kaya toast, airy white toast slathered with coconut egg jam and butter; treats good enough to take my mind off of waiting for an hour on my feet. I then dove into the dim sum, and became rather taken by the fungus and scallop dumplings. The curry mee, whether it is chicken or prawn, was a very popular option as well. When it comes to dessert, the dubiously-named black gluttonous rice soup sells out fast, which devastated the people I was sharing my table with.

They also serve an assortment of kuih for dessert, including my personal favourite, the kuih talam. It is a gelatinous square made up of two layers—one green, one white. They share the same base, a mixture of rice flour, green pea flower, and tapioca flour. The green layer is coloured and flavoured by the juice of pandan leaves, and the white one with coconut milk. For someone like myself, who doesn’t have a big sweet tooth, the savoury punch, balanced by a cool, refreshing finish make this dessert a quick favourite (kaya toast and coffee for RM5.9/Rs100).

  5. Kafe Old China

Est. 1920s

Address: 11, Jalan Balai Polis, City Centre

A relic from the 1920s, the Peranakan cuisine at Old China continues to draw in guests. The ambience seems trapped in another era, as is the food, in the best way possible. Post-modern, emerald green pendant lamps, feng shui facing windows, and old timey portraits make up the decor. A meal here is not complete without the beef rendang, hopefully with some blue peaflower rice. It is also one of the few places to get a decent glass of wine in Chinatown (mains from RM11/Rs190).

  6. Cafe Old Market Square

Est. 1928

Address: 2, Medan Pasar, City Centre

Kuala Lumpur skyline (top left) lies adjacent to the low-slung Chinatown neighbourhood (bottom right); A regular customer looks inside the original Sek Yuen restaurant (bottom left); Cooked on charcoal, the traditional clay pots brim with chunks of chicken, slivers of lap cheong (Chinese sausage), and morsels of salted fish (top right). Photos by: Julian Manning (food stall, woman), BusakornPongparnit/Moment/Getty Images (skyline), f11photo/shutterstock (market)

There is something incredibly satisfying about cracking a half boiled egg in two at this café, the sunny yolk framed by a cup of kopi, filled to the point the dark liquid decorates the mug with splash marks, and slabs of kaya toast. Despite a new lick of paint, I could feel the almost 100 years of history welling out of the antique, yellow window shutters lining the three storey facade of the building, the last floor operating as the café’s art gallery.

This place won me over as the perfect spot to read my morning paper, everything from the high-ceilings to the petit bistro tables allowed me to pretend I was in another era—a time when people still talked to each other instead of tapping at their smartphones like starved pigeons pecking at breadcrumbs. Yet, the best time to see this place in its full form is post noon, when the lunch crowd buzzes inside. Droves of locals cluster in front of the nasi lemak stand placed inside the café, hijabs jostling for the next plate assembled by an unsmiling woman with the unflinching demeanour of a person who has got several years of lunchtime rushes under her belt (lunch from RM6.5/Rs110, breakfast from RM1/Rs17).

  7. Capital Cafe

Est. 1956

Address: 21, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, City Centre

Beneath the now defunct City Hotel, Capital Cafe is your one-stop satay paradise. The cook coaxes up flames from a bed of charcoal with a bamboo hand fan, using his other hand to rotate fistfuls of beef and chicken skewers liberally brushed with a sticky glaze. The satay is a perfect paradox, so sweet, yet so savoury; the meat soft, but also blistered with a crisp char. This snack pairs wonderfully with hot kopi—perhaps because it cuts the sweetness—served by a couple of uncles brimming with cheeky smiles and good conversation (satay from RM4/Rs70). 

  8. Yut Kee

Est.1928

Address: 1, Jalan Kamunting, Chow Kit

Like many of KL’s golden era restaurants, Yut Kee moved just down the road from its original location. Serving Hainanese fare, like mee hoon and egg foo yoong, with a mix of English and Malay influences, YutKee has remained one of the most famous breakfast joints in all of KL for almost 100 years. At breakfast it features an almost even mix of locals and tourists, the former better at getting to the restaurant early to snag their regular tables.

During peak breakfast hours, waiters slap down face-sized slabs of chicken and pork chops, bread crumbed and fried golden brown, sitting in a pool of matching liquid gold gravy, speckled with peas, carrots, and potatoes. You can’t go wrong with either one. If your gut’s got the girth, follow up a chop with some hailam mee, fat noodles tossed with pork and tiny squid.

On weekends guests also get the opportunity to order two specials, the incredible pork roast and the marble cake. A glutton’s advice is to take an entire marble cake away with you. By not eating it there you save room for their seriously generous portions. The cake also lasts up to five days, which gives you about four more days than you’ll actually need. Plus it makes for a perfect souvenir, especially since the Yut Kee branded cake box is so iconic.

One of the many delighted people I gave a slice of cake to back home hit a homerun when they put into words what was so special about the marble cake: “It’s not super fancy, with extra bells and whistles, but it tastes like what cake is supposed to…like something your grandma would make at home.” As he said the last words he reached for another sliver of cake (chicken chop is for RM 10.5/Rs180, a slice of marble cake is for RM1.3/Rs20).

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source http://cheaprtravels.com/kuala-lumpurs-choice-chinese-cooking/

[topfygad]

Kuala Lumpur’s Choice Chinese Cooking

Chomp your way through the Malaysian capital’s storied eateries.

  The city blocks are chock-full with heritage eateries and roadside stalls. On a single outing visitors will most likely see satay (top left) licked by flames, the vermillion skin of Peking duck (top right), chopsticks pull at a tangle of beef noodles (bottom left), and billows of hot air coursing out of behemoth bamboo steamers holding a trove of dim sum (bottom right). Photos by: Julian Manning

Plumes of cigarette smoke rise like white ribbons, coiling amidst the clamour of Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown. What incense is to Tao temples, cigarettes are to these streets. Warm notes of roasted chestnuts are replaced by the beer-soaked breath of elderly men quarrelling in Cantonese as I walk down Petaling Road—the spine of a neighbourhood predominantly made up of Chinese immigrants new and old, and throngs of tourists eager to eat.

Some people insist that Chinatowns are the same everywhere. They are, simply, wrong. From haggling over sweet pork sausages in Bangkok to rolling dice over whisky shots in San Francisco, in my experience, Chinatowns are far from cookie cutter replicas of each other. And if I had to choose one in particular to challenge that ill-informed notion, it would be the wonderfully scruffy streets of KL’s Chinatown.

Cherry-red arches and faux Yeezys on ‘discount’ hardly define the area. Cooks are the core of the community, whether they don a sweat-stained ganji or a double-breasted chef’s jacket, and you will realise as much walking down the streets. The culinary roots of this Chinatown’s inhabitants spread out in a tangle, like that of a banyan tree. Baba-Nyona cuisine, also known as Peranakan cuisine, is a mix of influences from early Chinese immigrants who integrated themselves with the local Malays. They are represented by dishes like beef rendang and nasil emak, the latter a medley of coconut milk rice, sambal, fried anchovies, a boiled egg, with the typical addition of chicken. Later waves of immigrants brought along delicacies from their respective regions: char siu pork and dim sum of the Yue cuisine, porridges of Fujian or Hookien cuisine, and the much-coveted Hainanese or Hunan chicken rice, to name a few. In the bylanes of this bustling quarter, culinary traditions stick to these streets like the patina of a well-used wok.

Here, vermilion-hued ducks hang from hawker stands, glowing like the gauze lanterns that line the streets, outshined only by flames dancing below clay pots filled with golden rice and morsels of chicken, fish, and lap cheong sausages. Each stall and station is manned by a master of their craft. Plastic chairs become portholes to skewers laden with charcoal grilled meat and bowlfuls of fragrant asam laksa, wafting tangy notes of tamarind, the broth waiting to be swiftly slurped up.

Finding a memorable meal in KL’s Chinatown is as easy as promenading down its central streets. A hot jumble of thick hokkien mee noodles have been a staple at Kim Lian Lee for decades, the once-upon-a-time stall now a two-storey tall institution. Just across the street is Koon Kee, another neighbourhood stalwart serving up their popular wan tan mee, char siu pork-topped Cantonese noodles tossed in a sweet black sauce, served with pork and shrimp dumplings. And just down Madras Lane (the street’s name has officially been changed, but locals still use its original title) lies a long line for yong tau foo, tofu typically stuffed with minced pork and fish paste, which has had customers queuing up for over 60 years. The catch? In this hubbub, it is all too easy to miss some of the less central but equally important eateries.

This storied assortment of kopitiams (coffee shops), family restaurants, and outdoor stalls from the halcyon days of Chinese culinary influence in Kuala Lumpur are tucked away from the bustle, a few even mapped outside of the boundaries of Chinatown. So if your palate craves a bit of the past in the present, weave in and out of Chinatown and explore restaurants where the same dishes have been served up for decades, for very good reasons.

  1. Sang Kee

Est. 1970s

Address: 5A, Jalan Yap Ah Loy, City Centre

At dinner time Chinatown’s sidewalks (top) turn into a menagerie of meals. Chef Won San (bottom) gets to work on an order of freshwater prawn noodles. Photo by: Julian Manning

Sang har mee, or freshwater prawn noodles, are quite the treat in KL. The best sang har mee places are typically stalls, yet they do not come cheap, the most popular joints serving up the dish from anywhere between RM50-90/Rs835-1,500. Even though the portions are usually enough to fill two people, for those kind of prices you want to be sure you’re indulging in the best sang har mee in the neighbourhood.

Tucked in a discreet alleyway in the shade of pre-World War II buildings, on a little lane where late night courtesans would once congregate, lies Sang Kee. For over four decades this open air kitchen has been serving up some of the best freshwater prawn noodles in KL.

Those interested in a performance can inch up in front of the old man behind the wok and watch him work his wizardry, he doesn’t mind. Two beautifully big freshwater prawns are butterflied and cooked in prawn roe gravy, stirred in with egg, slivers of ginger, and leafy greens. Wong San, the chef, understands his wok like Skywalker understands the force—meaning, the wok hei (wok heat or temperature) is on point.

Once on your plate, plucking a plump piece of prawn out of the open shell is an easy feat. The fresh and supple meat is charged with the gravy, bite into it, and a flash flood of flavour courses out. In KL most versions of sang har mee sport crisp, uncooked yee mee noodles, which are then drenched in the prawn-imbued sauce. A lot of people love ’em this way, but I personally feel this gives the noodles the texture of a wet bird’s nest. Sang Kee’s noodles are cut thick, boiled, and then stir-fried, coated with oodles of scrambled egg, a style that lets the prawn’s flavours permeate every bit of the dish. At Sang Kee, for most folks a single p

ortion is enough for two at RM65/Rs1,085 a plate, but if that’s too steep a price, you can get the dish made with regular prawns for significantly less.

  2. Soong Kee Beef Noodles

Est. 1945

Address: 86, Jalan Tun H S Lee, City Centre

The fine people at Soong Kee have been serving up beef noodles since World War II, and the product speaks for itself. It’s always crowded at lunchtime, but don’t worry about waiting around too long. Usually a server will squeeze you in at one of the many large round tables with plenty of neighbours who don’t mind the company. I love this approach because it means you get a good look at what your table-mates are munching on. That being said, newcomers should inaugurate their Soong Kee experience with beef ball soup and beef mince noodles—simple but hearty dishes that will give you a good idea of why the place has stuck around (small bowl of noodles from RM7/Rs120).

  3. Sek Yuen

Est.1948

Address: 315, Jalan Pudu, Pudu

Mealtimes beckon travellers to dig into bowlfuls of beef ball soup (bottom left), pluck of piping hot scallop dumplings (middle left), and perhaps chow down on a myriad of meat skewers (top right). For dessert, munch on crunchy ham chim peng (bottom right), delicious doughnuts filled with red bean paste. If the flavour is too earthy for you, just pick up an entire bag of regular doughnuts (top left) or roasted chestnuts (middle right) from one of the city’s many street vendors. Photos by: Julian Manning

Sek Yuen is made up of three separate sections, spread out over adjacent lots a few feet from each other. One is being renovated, another is the original 1948 location, and the last is the crowded AC section built in the 1970s. I wanted to eat in the original section, but by the time I arrived the service was slowing down and everyone was dining in the AC section. When in doubt, follow the locals.

Two noteworthy staples of the restaurant, steam-tofu-and-fish-paste as well as the crab balls, were already sold out by the time I placed my order. So I happily went for the famous roast duck with some stir fried greens. The duck was delicious; the skin extra crispy from being air-dried, yet the meat was juicy with hints of star anise, which paired well with the house sour plum sauce. But what I enjoyed most was the people-watching. A Cantonese rendition of “Happy Birthday” played non-stop on the restaurant’s sound system for the entire 50 minutes I was there. The soundtrack lent extra character to the packed house of local Chinese diners, most of them regulars. To my right, a group of rosy-cheeked businessmen decimated a bottle of 12-year Glenlivet, and were perhaps the most jovial chaps I’ve ever seen. In front of me, a group of aunties were in party mode, laughing the night away with unbridled cackles. Perhaps the most entertaining guest was the worried mother who kept scurrying over to the front door, pulling the curtains aside to check if her sons were outside smoking. The sensory overload hit the spot. You could tell people were comfortable here, like it was a second home—letting loose in unison, reliving old memories while creating new ones.

I learned that when all sections of the restaurant are operational, Sek Yuen is said to employ around 100 people, many of whom have stuck with the restaurant for a very long time, just like the wood fire stoves that still burn in the kitchen (duck from RM30/Rs500).

  4. Ho Kow Hainan Kopitiam

Est.1956

Address: 1, Jalan Balai Polis, City Centre

Although it has shifted from Lorong Panggung to the quieter Jalan Balai Polis, Ho Kow Kopitiam remains outrageously popular. Customers are for the most part locals and Asian tourists, unwilling to leave the queue even when the wait extends past an hour. In fact, there is a machine that manages the number system of the queue, albeit with the help of a frazzled young man whose sole job is telling hungry people they’ll have to wait a long time before they get any food. It’s safe to say the gent needs a raise. If you haven’t guessed already, get there early, before they open at 7:30 a.m.—otherwise you’ll be peering through the entrance watching the best dishes get sold out.

Many tables had the champeng (an iced mix of coffee and tea), but I’m a sucker for the hot kopi (coffee) with a bit of kaya toast, airy white toast slathered with coconut egg jam and butter; treats good enough to take my mind off of waiting for an hour on my feet. I then dove into the dim sum, and became rather taken by the fungus and scallop dumplings. The curry mee, whether it is chicken or prawn, was a very popular option as well. When it comes to dessert, the dubiously-named black gluttonous rice soup sells out fast, which devastated the people I was sharing my table with.

They also serve an assortment of kuih for dessert, including my personal favourite, the kuih talam. It is a gelatinous square made up of two layers—one green, one white. They share the same base, a mixture of rice flour, green pea flower, and tapioca flour. The green layer is coloured and flavoured by the juice of pandan leaves, and the white one with coconut milk. For someone like myself, who doesn’t have a big sweet tooth, the savoury punch, balanced by a cool, refreshing finish make this dessert a quick favourite (kaya toast and coffee for RM5.9/Rs100).

  5. Kafe Old China

Est. 1920s

Address: 11, Jalan Balai Polis, City Centre

A relic from the 1920s, the Peranakan cuisine at Old China continues to draw in guests. The ambience seems trapped in another era, as is the food, in the best way possible. Post-modern, emerald green pendant lamps, feng shui facing windows, and old timey portraits make up the decor. A meal here is not complete without the beef rendang, hopefully with some blue peaflower rice. It is also one of the few places to get a decent glass of wine in Chinatown (mains from RM11/Rs190).

  6. Cafe Old Market Square

Est. 1928

Address: 2, Medan Pasar, City Centre

Kuala Lumpur skyline (top left) lies adjacent to the low-slung Chinatown neighbourhood (bottom right); A regular customer looks inside the original Sek Yuen restaurant (bottom left); Cooked on charcoal, the traditional clay pots brim with chunks of chicken, slivers of lap cheong (Chinese sausage), and morsels of salted fish (top right). Photos by: Julian Manning (food stall, woman), BusakornPongparnit/Moment/Getty Images (skyline), f11photo/shutterstock (market)

There is something incredibly satisfying about cracking a half boiled egg in two at this café, the sunny yolk framed by a cup of kopi, filled to the point the dark liquid decorates the mug with splash marks, and slabs of kaya toast. Despite a new lick of paint, I could feel the almost 100 years of history welling out of the antique, yellow window shutters lining the three storey facade of the building, the last floor operating as the café’s art gallery.

This place won me over as the perfect spot to read my morning paper, everything from the high-ceilings to the petit bistro tables allowed me to pretend I was in another era—a time when people still talked to each other instead of tapping at their smartphones like starved pigeons pecking at breadcrumbs. Yet, the best time to see this place in its full form is post noon, when the lunch crowd buzzes inside. Droves of locals cluster in front of the nasi lemak stand placed inside the café, hijabs jostling for the next plate assembled by an unsmiling woman with the unflinching demeanour of a person who has got several years of lunchtime rushes under her belt (lunch from RM6.5/Rs110, breakfast from RM1/Rs17).

  7. Capital Cafe

Est. 1956

Address: 21, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, City Centre

Beneath the now defunct City Hotel, Capital Cafe is your one-stop satay paradise. The cook coaxes up flames from a bed of charcoal with a bamboo hand fan, using his other hand to rotate fistfuls of beef and chicken skewers liberally brushed with a sticky glaze. The satay is a perfect paradox, so sweet, yet so savoury; the meat soft, but also blistered with a crisp char. This snack pairs wonderfully with hot kopi—perhaps because it cuts the sweetness—served by a couple of uncles brimming with cheeky smiles and good conversation (satay from RM4/Rs70). 

  8. Yut Kee

Est.1928

Address: 1, Jalan Kamunting, Chow Kit

Like many of KL’s golden era restaurants, Yut Kee moved just down the road from its original location. Serving Hainanese fare, like mee hoon and egg foo yoong, with a mix of English and Malay influences, YutKee has remained one of the most famous breakfast joints in all of KL for almost 100 years. At breakfast it features an almost even mix of locals and tourists, the former better at getting to the restaurant early to snag their regular tables.

During peak breakfast hours, waiters slap down face-sized slabs of chicken and pork chops, bread crumbed and fried golden brown, sitting in a pool of matching liquid gold gravy, speckled with peas, carrots, and potatoes. You can’t go wrong with either one. If your gut’s got the girth, follow up a chop with some hailam mee, fat noodles tossed with pork and tiny squid.

On weekends guests also get the opportunity to order two specials, the incredible pork roast and the marble cake. A glutton’s advice is to take an entire marble cake away with you. By not eating it there you save room for their seriously generous portions. The cake also lasts up to five days, which gives you about four more days than you’ll actually need. Plus it makes for a perfect souvenir, especially since the Yut Kee branded cake box is so iconic.

One of the many delighted people I gave a slice of cake to back home hit a homerun when they put into words what was so special about the marble cake: “It’s not super fancy, with extra bells and whistles, but it tastes like what cake is supposed to…like something your grandma would make at home.” As he said the last words he reached for another sliver of cake (chicken chop is for RM 10.5/Rs180, a slice of marble cake is for RM1.3/Rs20).

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Kuala Lumpur’s Choice Chinese Cooking

Chomp your way through the Malaysian capital’s storied eateries.

  The city blocks are chock-full with heritage eateries and roadside stalls. On a single outing visitors will most likely see satay (top left) licked by flames, the vermillion skin of Peking duck (top right), chopsticks pull at a tangle of beef noodles (bottom left), and billows of hot air coursing out of behemoth bamboo steamers holding a trove of dim sum (bottom right). Photos by: Julian Manning

Plumes of cigarette smoke rise like white ribbons, coiling amidst the clamour of Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown. What incense is to Tao temples, cigarettes are to these streets. Warm notes of roasted chestnuts are replaced by the beer-soaked breath of elderly men quarrelling in Cantonese as I walk down Petaling Road—the spine of a neighbourhood predominantly made up of Chinese immigrants new and old, and throngs of tourists eager to eat.

Some people insist that Chinatowns are the same everywhere. They are, simply, wrong. From haggling over sweet pork sausages in Bangkok to rolling dice over whisky shots in San Francisco, in my experience, Chinatowns are far from cookie cutter replicas of each other. And if I had to choose one in particular to challenge that ill-informed notion, it would be the wonderfully scruffy streets of KL’s Chinatown.

Cherry-red arches and faux Yeezys on ‘discount’ hardly define the area. Cooks are the core of the community, whether they don a sweat-stained ganji or a double-breasted chef’s jacket, and you will realise as much walking down the streets. The culinary roots of this Chinatown’s inhabitants spread out in a tangle, like that of a banyan tree. Baba-Nyona cuisine, also known as Peranakan cuisine, is a mix of influences from early Chinese immigrants who integrated themselves with the local Malays. They are represented by dishes like beef rendang and nasil emak, the latter a medley of coconut milk rice, sambal, fried anchovies, a boiled egg, with the typical addition of chicken. Later waves of immigrants brought along delicacies from their respective regions: char siu pork and dim sum of the Yue cuisine, porridges of Fujian or Hookien cuisine, and the much-coveted Hainanese or Hunan chicken rice, to name a few. In the bylanes of this bustling quarter, culinary traditions stick to these streets like the patina of a well-used wok.

Here, vermilion-hued ducks hang from hawker stands, glowing like the gauze lanterns that line the streets, outshined only by flames dancing below clay pots filled with golden rice and morsels of chicken, fish, and lap cheong sausages. Each stall and station is manned by a master of their craft. Plastic chairs become portholes to skewers laden with charcoal grilled meat and bowlfuls of fragrant asam laksa, wafting tangy notes of tamarind, the broth waiting to be swiftly slurped up.

Finding a memorable meal in KL’s Chinatown is as easy as promenading down its central streets. A hot jumble of thick hokkien mee noodles have been a staple at Kim Lian Lee for decades, the once-upon-a-time stall now a two-storey tall institution. Just across the street is Koon Kee, another neighbourhood stalwart serving up their popular wan tan mee, char siu pork-topped Cantonese noodles tossed in a sweet black sauce, served with pork and shrimp dumplings. And just down Madras Lane (the street’s name has officially been changed, but locals still use its original title) lies a long line for yong tau foo, tofu typically stuffed with minced pork and fish paste, which has had customers queuing up for over 60 years. The catch? In this hubbub, it is all too easy to miss some of the less central but equally important eateries.

This storied assortment of kopitiams (coffee shops), family restaurants, and outdoor stalls from the halcyon days of Chinese culinary influence in Kuala Lumpur are tucked away from the bustle, a few even mapped outside of the boundaries of Chinatown. So if your palate craves a bit of the past in the present, weave in and out of Chinatown and explore restaurants where the same dishes have been served up for decades, for very good reasons.

  1. Sang Kee

Est. 1970s

Address: 5A, Jalan Yap Ah Loy, City Centre

At dinner time Chinatown’s sidewalks (top) turn into a menagerie of meals. Chef Won San (bottom) gets to work on an order of freshwater prawn noodles. Photo by: Julian Manning

Sang har mee, or freshwater prawn noodles, are quite the treat in KL. The best sang har mee places are typically stalls, yet they do not come cheap, the most popular joints serving up the dish from anywhere between RM50-90/Rs835-1,500. Even though the portions are usually enough to fill two people, for those kind of prices you want to be sure you’re indulging in the best sang har mee in the neighbourhood.

Tucked in a discreet alleyway in the shade of pre-World War II buildings, on a little lane where late night courtesans would once congregate, lies Sang Kee. For over four decades this open air kitchen has been serving up some of the best freshwater prawn noodles in KL.

Those interested in a performance can inch up in front of the old man behind the wok and watch him work his wizardry, he doesn’t mind. Two beautifully big freshwater prawns are butterflied and cooked in prawn roe gravy, stirred in with egg, slivers of ginger, and leafy greens. Wong San, the chef, understands his wok like Skywalker understands the force—meaning, the wok hei (wok heat or temperature) is on point.

Once on your plate, plucking a plump piece of prawn out of the open shell is an easy feat. The fresh and supple meat is charged with the gravy, bite into it, and a flash flood of flavour courses out. In KL most versions of sang har mee sport crisp, uncooked yee mee noodles, which are then drenched in the prawn-imbued sauce. A lot of people love ’em this way, but I personally feel this gives the noodles the texture of a wet bird’s nest. Sang Kee’s noodles are cut thick, boiled, and then stir-fried, coated with oodles of scrambled egg, a style that lets the prawn’s flavours permeate every bit of the dish. At Sang Kee, for most folks a single p

ortion is enough for two at RM65/Rs1,085 a plate, but if that’s too steep a price, you can get the dish made with regular prawns for significantly less.

  2. Soong Kee Beef Noodles

Est. 1945

Address: 86, Jalan Tun H S Lee, City Centre

The fine people at Soong Kee have been serving up beef noodles since World War II, and the product speaks for itself. It’s always crowded at lunchtime, but don’t worry about waiting around too long. Usually a server will squeeze you in at one of the many large round tables with plenty of neighbours who don’t mind the company. I love this approach because it means you get a good look at what your table-mates are munching on. That being said, newcomers should inaugurate their Soong Kee experience with beef ball soup and beef mince noodles—simple but hearty dishes that will give you a good idea of why the place has stuck around (small bowl of noodles from RM7/Rs120).

  3. Sek Yuen

Est.1948

Address: 315, Jalan Pudu, Pudu

Mealtimes beckon travellers to dig into bowlfuls of beef ball soup (bottom left), pluck of piping hot scallop dumplings (middle left), and perhaps chow down on a myriad of meat skewers (top right). For dessert, munch on crunchy ham chim peng (bottom right), delicious doughnuts filled with red bean paste. If the flavour is too earthy for you, just pick up an entire bag of regular doughnuts (top left) or roasted chestnuts (middle right) from one of the city’s many street vendors. Photos by: Julian Manning

Sek Yuen is made up of three separate sections, spread out over adjacent lots a few feet from each other. One is being renovated, another is the original 1948 location, and the last is the crowded AC section built in the 1970s. I wanted to eat in the original section, but by the time I arrived the service was slowing down and everyone was dining in the AC section. When in doubt, follow the locals.

Two noteworthy staples of the restaurant, steam-tofu-and-fish-paste as well as the crab balls, were already sold out by the time I placed my order. So I happily went for the famous roast duck with some stir fried greens. The duck was delicious; the skin extra crispy from being air-dried, yet the meat was juicy with hints of star anise, which paired well with the house sour plum sauce. But what I enjoyed most was the people-watching. A Cantonese rendition of “Happy Birthday” played non-stop on the restaurant’s sound system for the entire 50 minutes I was there. The soundtrack lent extra character to the packed house of local Chinese diners, most of them regulars. To my right, a group of rosy-cheeked businessmen decimated a bottle of 12-year Glenlivet, and were perhaps the most jovial chaps I’ve ever seen. In front of me, a group of aunties were in party mode, laughing the night away with unbridled cackles. Perhaps the most entertaining guest was the worried mother who kept scurrying over to the front door, pulling the curtains aside to check if her sons were outside smoking. The sensory overload hit the spot. You could tell people were comfortable here, like it was a second home—letting loose in unison, reliving old memories while creating new ones.

I learned that when all sections of the restaurant are operational, Sek Yuen is said to employ around 100 people, many of whom have stuck with the restaurant for a very long time, just like the wood fire stoves that still burn in the kitchen (duck from RM30/Rs500).

  4. Ho Kow Hainan Kopitiam

Est.1956

Address: 1, Jalan Balai Polis, City Centre

Although it has shifted from Lorong Panggung to the quieter Jalan Balai Polis, Ho Kow Kopitiam remains outrageously popular. Customers are for the most part locals and Asian tourists, unwilling to leave the queue even when the wait extends past an hour. In fact, there is a machine that manages the number system of the queue, albeit with the help of a frazzled young man whose sole job is telling hungry people they’ll have to wait a long time before they get any food. It’s safe to say the gent needs a raise. If you haven’t guessed already, get there early, before they open at 7:30 a.m.—otherwise you’ll be peering through the entrance watching the best dishes get sold out.

Many tables had the champeng (an iced mix of coffee and tea), but I’m a sucker for the hot kopi (coffee) with a bit of kaya toast, airy white toast slathered with coconut egg jam and butter; treats good enough to take my mind off of waiting for an hour on my feet. I then dove into the dim sum, and became rather taken by the fungus and scallop dumplings. The curry mee, whether it is chicken or prawn, was a very popular option as well. When it comes to dessert, the dubiously-named black gluttonous rice soup sells out fast, which devastated the people I was sharing my table with.

They also serve an assortment of kuih for dessert, including my personal favourite, the kuih talam. It is a gelatinous square made up of two layers—one green, one white. They share the same base, a mixture of rice flour, green pea flower, and tapioca flour. The green layer is coloured and flavoured by the juice of pandan leaves, and the white one with coconut milk. For someone like myself, who doesn’t have a big sweet tooth, the savoury punch, balanced by a cool, refreshing finish make this dessert a quick favourite (kaya toast and coffee for RM5.9/Rs100).

  5. Kafe Old China

Est. 1920s

Address: 11, Jalan Balai Polis, City Centre

A relic from the 1920s, the Peranakan cuisine at Old China continues to draw in guests. The ambience seems trapped in another era, as is the food, in the best way possible. Post-modern, emerald green pendant lamps, feng shui facing windows, and old timey portraits make up the decor. A meal here is not complete without the beef rendang, hopefully with some blue peaflower rice. It is also one of the few places to get a decent glass of wine in Chinatown (mains from RM11/Rs190).

  6. Cafe Old Market Square

Est. 1928

Address: 2, Medan Pasar, City Centre

Kuala Lumpur skyline (top left) lies adjacent to the low-slung Chinatown neighbourhood (bottom right); A regular customer looks inside the original Sek Yuen restaurant (bottom left); Cooked on charcoal, the traditional clay pots brim with chunks of chicken, slivers of lap cheong (Chinese sausage), and morsels of salted fish (top right). Photos by: Julian Manning (food stall, woman), BusakornPongparnit/Moment/Getty Images (skyline), f11photo/shutterstock (market)

There is something incredibly satisfying about cracking a half boiled egg in two at this café, the sunny yolk framed by a cup of kopi, filled to the point the dark liquid decorates the mug with splash marks, and slabs of kaya toast. Despite a new lick of paint, I could feel the almost 100 years of history welling out of the antique, yellow window shutters lining the three storey facade of the building, the last floor operating as the café’s art gallery.

This place won me over as the perfect spot to read my morning paper, everything from the high-ceilings to the petit bistro tables allowed me to pretend I was in another era—a time when people still talked to each other instead of tapping at their smartphones like starved pigeons pecking at breadcrumbs. Yet, the best time to see this place in its full form is post noon, when the lunch crowd buzzes inside. Droves of locals cluster in front of the nasi lemak stand placed inside the café, hijabs jostling for the next plate assembled by an unsmiling woman with the unflinching demeanour of a person who has got several years of lunchtime rushes under her belt (lunch from RM6.5/Rs110, breakfast from RM1/Rs17).

  7. Capital Cafe

Est. 1956

Address: 21, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, City Centre

Beneath the now defunct City Hotel, Capital Cafe is your one-stop satay paradise. The cook coaxes up flames from a bed of charcoal with a bamboo hand fan, using his other hand to rotate fistfuls of beef and chicken skewers liberally brushed with a sticky glaze. The satay is a perfect paradox, so sweet, yet so savoury; the meat soft, but also blistered with a crisp char. This snack pairs wonderfully with hot kopi—perhaps because it cuts the sweetness—served by a couple of uncles brimming with cheeky smiles and good conversation (satay from RM4/Rs70). 

  8. Yut Kee

Est.1928

Address: 1, Jalan Kamunting, Chow Kit

Like many of KL’s golden era restaurants, Yut Kee moved just down the road from its original location. Serving Hainanese fare, like mee hoon and egg foo yoong, with a mix of English and Malay influences, YutKee has remained one of the most famous breakfast joints in all of KL for almost 100 years. At breakfast it features an almost even mix of locals and tourists, the former better at getting to the restaurant early to snag their regular tables.

During peak breakfast hours, waiters slap down face-sized slabs of chicken and pork chops, bread crumbed and fried golden brown, sitting in a pool of matching liquid gold gravy, speckled with peas, carrots, and potatoes. You can’t go wrong with either one. If your gut’s got the girth, follow up a chop with some hailam mee, fat noodles tossed with pork and tiny squid.

On weekends guests also get the opportunity to order two specials, the incredible pork roast and the marble cake. A glutton’s advice is to take an entire marble cake away with you. By not eating it there you save room for their seriously generous portions. The cake also lasts up to five days, which gives you about four more days than you’ll actually need. Plus it makes for a perfect souvenir, especially since the Yut Kee branded cake box is so iconic.

One of the many delighted people I gave a slice of cake to back home hit a homerun when they put into words what was so special about the marble cake: “It’s not super fancy, with extra bells and whistles, but it tastes like what cake is supposed to…like something your grandma would make at home.” As he said the last words he reached for another sliver of cake (chicken chop is for RM 10.5/Rs180, a slice of marble cake is for RM1.3/Rs20).

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