#planes over Kowloon

[kply-industries]

Planes over Kowloon

[chancellorxofxtrash]

Where is Etsusa Bridge, anyways?

(all quotes are from @untuned-strings' translation)

Warning: excess amount of pictures and my decreasing sanity about this project

The longest bridge in the world, standing between Sado and Niigata. The nameless artificial island in the very middle of the bridge, abandoned in the recession, is a lawless world swarming with illegal immigrants and criminals — a modern-day Kowloon Walled City.

Okay so. Where is it? Well, where would it be, that is. We know Etsusa Bridge doesn't actually exist, but let's see if we can pin down where the actual location is. We know the bridge connects Sado and Niigata. That's a good step one.

Obviously the sensible thing would be to connect at the shortest possible destination right. Well nothing is sensible about this project, to be fair.

The next thing we know - when we first meet Hayato, he is at the Rainbow Tower.

Which is fitting for our rainbow-headed bastardboy, but we couldn't replicate it even if we wanted to, as the tower had gotten demolished in 2018. As Hayato visited the Rainbow Tower in 2014, he squeezed in just in time (although by the time he left the island in Bow Wow in 2019, the Rainbow Tower would have been gone)

Rainbow Tower's location:

That said Hayato gets up there, to the 100-meter-high observation point explicitly to look at the bridge.

“Ah! There, there. I see it. Heh. To be honest, I came just to see that thing over there.” He said to the silent family in a subtly affable voice.

The structure at the end of his gaze was the monstrous bridge that connected Sado to the mainland, and the massive artificial island in the middle. Rainbow-Head pressed his face to the glass, mumbling to himself.

I think this means that this is still quite far from that specific location - it's easier to get there via plane or whatever he used to get back to Japan from South America, so he'd climb up there just to eye up his next destination. I don't think they built it close to the tower because...

You see? Not very sensible.

At this point you can probably pinpoint the area I am eyeing. After all, very clear where the closest points are right? Right?

"G, the entire project was just a vanity project because they wanted to outdo China" yes yes yes, but I like to think there were SOME sensible people on this project, okay?

Let's see if we can get anything else

Like... where did Seiichi come from? After all, Hayato came from the Niigata side, Seiichi came from the Sado side.

Seiichi and Kanae's section starts with the Himezaki Lighthouse

....bro.

BRO!!!!

This is the part in my research I start to feel like going mad. Because. While with Hayato I could easily argue that maybe he traveled to the area where the two islands are closest to each other - he's a grown man, and sure, he doesn't have money, but when did that ever stop him? I can reason it with Hayato. But Seiichi and Kanae are fifteen, and yes, we know he had done big adventures before... somehow I doubt so. But let's keep reading.

“I found a little gap we could squeeze through to Etsusa Bridge!” “What?” He recalled the crude building jutting off the southern edge of the island. Etsusa Bridge had the biggest presence on the island, but it was not particularly associated with the function of a bridge. After all, he had never crossed the bridge—in fact, he had never even gone near it.

...yeah no, if Kanae could alone wander around to find that gap, it has to be close to where they are. And even Seiichi can recall where the entrance of the bridge is, even though he never really went close to it... it has to be close to them. And we can easily assume they live close to the lighthouse... why the hell would they build the bridge there?

Well... the traffic would explain it. Because see, if you'd want to get from where the Rainbow Tower had been and go to Sado Island today...

Look where the ferry goes. Sure the Bridge cannot be built to go to Ryotsuko Sado Kisen because THAT would actually be a hell of a construction job. But the Himezaki Lighthouse is a good-ish spot.

Let's keep going. We know where Seiichi and Kanae enter. Where does Hayato get on his ride there?

Niigata harbor. Which is pretty much the area where you have to board the official ferry to Sado Island too. So yep.

So. We can pretty much guess the location now.

Or maybe

Let's see if we can guess based on length.

Hayato's guide to the island mentions that the longest over-sea bridge in China is "35, 36 km" and that Japan wanted to beat that record. The bridge they are talking about is Hangzhou Bay Bridge. Which is, in fact, 35,6 km long. So we know Etsusa Bridge has to be longer. Let's see the distances.

So around 42-45 km. Aight. I am choosing to ignore the part where Seiichi says as far as he knows, the island is about 10 km off from Sado because then I'll have a meltdown about the island's placement and how big is the artificial island supposed to be, jesus christ.

I mean. It is described as a "kilometers-long fortress", so take it as you will.

At the end of Bow-Wow Hayato does escape to Sado Island - and then travels back to Niigata with a ferry (although with a very optimistic description from Narita as the ferry that Hayato uses to cross to the mainland goes way quicker than the one that Google Maps informed me of).

And the ferry did pass by the center of Etsusa Bridge, so... assuming this super fast ferry goes by the same route... the first option seems most likely

What a goddamned mess. What a giant project and for what? Sure, a lot of traffic goes through there.

The shortest distance between the two islands I found is about 32-33 km.

That wouldn't work for a vanity project now, would it?

I'm not going to try to figure out the actual size and placement of the island. Seiichi says it is around 10 km away from Sado Island. I'm sure you could calculate how big would it have to be and where it would need to be placed in order for the Bridge to be stable but I already went insane. I thought this was at least somewhat sensible of a project. But no. No it wasn't. LOOK AT HOW MUCH LONGER IT IS THAN THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN THE ISLANDS. Goddamnit.

@agallimaufryofoddments tagging you too because I feel like you might be interested in my insanity.

[lafiametta]

Touching 9. Listening to the other's heartbeat

This one's a touch spicier, Anon... I hope you don't mind! ;)

After they finish, Olek rolls over onto his back, pulling her into the warm circle of his arms. Ling Yi lets her head rest against his chest, a small hollow just below his shoulder. Tiny sparks still flicker in her veins, growing dimmer as she lays there. For a few moments, it's enough to simply breathe, to feel air filling her lungs, to wait as the desperate rhythm of her heart begins to slow.

The room is so dark she can barely see him, just a faint outline in the glow of the lantern light. But there is no mistaking the solid bulk of his body against hers, the weight of his arms as they wrap around her, making her feel small and safe, hidden away and protected from the world.

With a quick lift of her chin, she glances up at him, his eyes glinting with pinpricks of light.

It's hard to know what to do now. The times that she had seen her mother bring men on board their boat, they had not stayed after it was done. Ling Yi had not expected Olek to get up and leave when it was over—he was too kind for that—but beyond this, she had given little thought to what would happen after. She can't deny how nice it feels, though, simply laying with him in the dark, the quiet wrapping itself around them like the softest of embraces.

Her palm rests lightly on the plane of his chest and through the silence she can hear the sound of his heart, ponderous and deep. It is hypnotic, a slow reverberation that reminds her of nothing so much as the swell of the ocean—not the choppy tide that batters at the Kerberos, but the gentle waves of home. The sound she would hear as the warm harbor water lapped at her boat, soft enough to lull her to sleep on humid nights as lights flickered across the bay.

Ling Yi wishes she could tell him this. She wishes she could tell him of her life, of the place she called home half a world away from here. It aches a little to think that he might never understand this part of her.

As if sensing her thoughts, Olek slips his hand from her back and reaches to tuck a stray length of hair behind her ear. It lingers there, just underneath her jaw, a gentle brush of his thumb against her skin.

She glances up again, their eyes meeting in the darkness. It is unspoken, what they share, but enough to make her believe that he might be able to understand after all.

"I was born in Kowloon Bay," she whispers, the words in Cantonese falling from her lips like water flowing through stones. "My mother and I, we lived on a boat in the harbor. Some mornings the fog would be so thick you couldn't see anything, and the fishermen would yell from their boats to anyone nearby as a warning. But it always cleared by mid-day and then the docks were full of people... beggars and hawkers, servant girls, the Englishmen in their fine suits..."

[send me an Olek x Ling Yi kissing or touching prompt]

[flavinbagel]

This whole approach was insane, since the only place they could build a runway long enough had the runway butted up perpendicular to the mountains of HK and then stretching out into the harbour.

So to land you had to approach downtown along the mountains as if you were gonna land, get very close to the hills and buildings of the city below, and then make a hard right turn at the very last second when you reached a giant checkered billboard on the hill over Kowloon (the planes in photos 3 and 5 are making this turn).

Kai-Tak was wild, would have loved to experience it.

Planes landing at Kai Tak International Airport in Hong Kong (which was closed in 1998)

[blech]

When Bigger Isn't Better

There's a tendency in science fiction (and more generally futurism) to project bigness into the future. For example, here's a screen capture from the 1995 Ghost in the Shell, set in the far distant future of (looks) 2029.

Apparently inspired by the 747s and other jets looming over Kowloon as they arrived at Hong Kong's airport, a huge jet with six engines is silhouetted over a cityscape.

In the 2024 that actually happened, though, most transoceanic jets look like this.

That's a Boeing 787. It has two engines, not six. It turns out that what actually happened is that jet engines got reliable. Really reliable. So much so, in fact, that global regulators increased the distance that two-engined planes could be from the nearest airport, increasing from 60 minutes flight time, to 90, then 180, and now four hours is allowed (admittedly under some fairly stringent conditions).

There's still a small number of three and four engined jets flying, but they are mostly now either very long haul A-380s or freighters. Meanwhile, Hong Kong's airport was moved in 1998, removing a thrilling but potentially disastrous spectacle. It's probably for the best.

(I could go on about how Lockheed and Douglas bickered over the tri-jet market in the 1970s while Airbus got their foothold developing the twin-engined A-300, but maybe that's a bit too nerdy.)

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 2.3 (after 1930)

1930 – The Communist Party of Vietnam is founded at a "Unification Conference" held in Kowloon, British Hong Kong. 1931 – The Hawke's Bay earthquake, New Zealand's worst natural disaster, kills 258. 1933 – Adolf Hitler announces that the expansion of Lebensraum into Eastern Europe, and its ruthless Germanisation, are the ultimate geopolitical objectives of Nazi foreign policy. 1943 – The SS Dorchester is sunk by a German U-boat. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survive. 1944 – World War II: During the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, U.S. Army and Marine forces seize Kwajalein Atoll from the defending Japanese garrison. 1945 – World War II: As part of Operation Thunderclap, 1,000 B-17s of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin, a raid which kills between 2,500 and 3,000 and dehouses another 120,000. 1945 – World War II: The United States and the Philippine Commonwealth begin a month-long battle to retake Manila from Japan. 1953 – The Batepá massacre occurred in São Tomé when the colonial administration and Portuguese landowners unleashed a wave of violence against the native creoles known as forros. 1958 – Founding of the Benelux Economic Union, creating a testing ground for a later European Economic Community. 1959 – Rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson are killed in a plane crash along with the pilot near Clear Lake, Iowa, an event later known as The Day the Music Died. 1959 – Sixty-five people are killed when American Airlines Flight 320 crashes into the East River on approach to LaGuardia Airport in New York City. 1960 – British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaks of "a wind of change", signalling that his Government was likely to support decolonisation. 1961 – The United States Air Force begins Operation Looking Glass, and over the next 30 years, a "Doomsday Plane" is always in the air, with the capability of taking direct control of the United States' bombers and missiles in the event of the destruction of the SAC's command post. 1966 – The Soviet Union's Luna 9 becomes the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon, and the first spacecraft to take pictures from the surface of the Moon. 1971 – New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption. 1972 – The first day of the seven-day 1972 Iran blizzard, which would kill at least 4,000 people, making it the deadliest snowstorm in history. 1984 – Doctor John Buster and a research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in the United States announce history's first embryo transfer, from one woman to another resulting in a live birth. 1984 – Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B is launched using Space Shuttle Challenger. 1989 – After a stroke two weeks previously, South African President P. W. Botha resigns as leader of the National Party, but stays on as president for six more months. 1989 – A military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay since 1954. 1994 – Space Shuttle program: STS-60 is launched, carrying Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard the Shuttle. 1995 – Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 gets underway from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 1998 – Cavalese cable car disaster: A United States military pilot causes the death of 20 people when his low-flying plane cuts the cable of a cable-car near Trento, Italy. 2005 – One hundred five people are killed when Kam Air Flight 904 crashes in the Pamir Mountains in Afghanistan. 2007 – A Baghdad market bombing kills at least 135 people and injures a further 339. 2014 – Two people are shot and killed and 29 students are taken hostage at a high school in Moscow, Russia. 2023 – 2023 Ohio train derailment: A freight train containing vinyl chloride and other hazardous materials derails and burns in East Palestine, Ohio, United States, releasing hydrogen chloride and phosgene into the air and contaminating the Ohio River.

[greenbagjosh]

Day 5 - 13 November 2003 - Hong Kong to Tokyo Narita, and again to San Francisco on the same day

Thursday 13 November 2003

こんにちわ! Konnichiwa, 你好 Ni Hao, Bom Dia and Good Morning!

I had packed most of my things the night before.leaving for breakfast. I used my coupon for hotel breakfast, ate and then went down to the street level to wait for the shuttle bus to the airport. After I boarded with all my luggage, the bus went to Nathan Road under the tunnel to Kowloon to make another pickup. It took about twenty minutes. Shortly the bus went along route 28 past Tsing Yi and further along northern Lantau Island. Past Tung Chung that I had visited the day before, the bus arrived at the departures area at the airport. After getting off the bus, and checking in baggage, I had to declare once again that I was not infected with SARS. Then I received my Hong Kong exit stamp. I bought a few more souvenirs before leaving Hong Kong, one of which was a red Chinese New Year lantern. Changing Macau Pataca to Hong Kong Dollar was not a very worthwhile effort, as the Macau Pataca is worth 97 percent the Hong Kong Dollar. I had maybe some Japanese Yen but not much.

The plane I boarded from Hong Kong to Tokyo, was a Boeing 767, a little smaller than the 747 I had flown over with. The flight was about from 9:30 AM to 2:50 PM with a time zone change. I did not remember much of it, I think I had chinese noodles with chicken for an early lunch. Landing at Narita, I did not have to declare being free of SARS, unless I wanted to exit the airport and have my passport stamped. I never received any stamp.

Changing money at Narita is a unique experience. You have to fill out a form before going to the counter. You have to write in the amount of Yen that you want to change . At the airport, having 50,000 Yen may be adequate, at least that was the case in 2003. You have to take special care for coin operated machines, for example pay phones and internet booths. Internet booths needed at the time, 100 Yen coins. Credit card use in 2003 was not common, at least not at the airport.

On the loudspeakers for flights to Seoul, the Korean pronunciation for 서울 Seoul was interesting. It had the "eou" diphthong as pure and clear as possible.

About 4:30 PM the sun set and the sky started to get dark. Since visiting Maine in November 2013 and 2017, I remember the "early" sundown times just like that day in November 2003 in Tokyo Narita.

This concludes my short journey to East Asia. I wish I had time to go back and see more.

谢谢 Xie xie, ありがとうございました domo arrigtato, muito obrigado and thank you for reading.

[eopederson]

The "good old days!" I remember flying into Kai Tak after flights from Singapore, carriers forbidden from flying over Viet Nam and Cambodia, and thus following a much longer trajectory than the Great Circle route would dictate. The diversion must have added an hour or two to the flight and thus lots more fuel. Then those same planes were not allowed to fly in "Red Chinese" airspace and had to take a convoluted route in order to land between the apartment blocks in Kowloon. It was an adventure for a passenger landing in the morning and all but joining locals in their apartments having their morning tea. It must have been a terror for pilots! The amazing thing was the fact that none of those planes crashed!

landing at Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong

[centrally-unplanned]

what's the kowloon manifesto take on where to put airports in cities?

Well the obvious answer would be Kai Tek Airport of Hong Kong:

Whose position slap dab right in the middle of dense high rises resulted an an interesting challenge for landing planes:

Because of the geography of the area positioning the airport with water on three sides of the runway, with Kowloon City's residential apartment complexes and 2000+ft mountains to the north-east of the airport, aircraft could not fly over the mountains and quickly drop in for a final. Instead, aircraft had to fly above Victoria Harbour and Kowloon City, passing north of Mong Kok's Bishop Hill. After passing Bishop Hill, pilots would see Checkerboard Hill with a large red and white checkerboard pattern. Once the pattern was sighted and identified, aircraft made a low-altitude (sub-600 ft) 47° right-hand turn, ending with a short final and touchdown. For pilots, this airport was technically demanding, as the approach could not be flown by aircraft instruments, but had to be flown visually because of the right-hand turn required

The increased crash rates are absolutely worth it to ensure that no land capable of hosting a skyscraper goes undeveloped! Closing it in 1998 was a mistake.

But seriously I don't think here there is too much specialness to airports. I think the good answers are A: Land reclamation, and B: Combining mixed use w/ good urban transport connections. I think Changi airport in Singapore is the best the airport in the world along these axes. Reclaimed land - aka building land out into the ocean - is great because using reclaimed land for heavy, large skyscrapers and such is absolutely doable but pretty expensive, but for runways aka strips of pavement its much easier. So just take your city coastline and jut out a reclaimed land strip somewhere so you aren't eating up valuable real estate. Changi, like 40% of Singapore, is built this way.

And then just make sure it has in particular robust metro access (you should never have to go outside to get to the metro), honestly many airports that aren't in the US do this fine, Heathrow is a good example and literally anything in Japan does it. Narita for example has its "express" line that takes you right into Tokyo station in Ginza (to compensate for the fact that Narita was built way too far outside the city, which is a mistake and definitely a relic of its 70's construction time), which links right into the Tokyo Metro's expansive express "circle" lines so you can orient quickly to any region of the city:

Finally I will pivot back to Changi airport because what it does better than any other airport on earth is being a "mixed use" facility via its shopping and retail section, Jewel Changi:

A massive park-retail complex embedded in the airport, it is where passengers check their bags, etc, but also where regular people just go to hang out; about 40% of its daily visitors are not airport customers at all. The customer-facing aspects of an airport are in fact not special; its restaurants, hotels, shopping, etc. There is no reason to box them off, make them *only* used by airport customers; it renders part of your city inaccessible, makes restaurants go unused, etc. They should be integrated and Changi does that to a degree I don't think anywhere else does.

Not that Singapore is perfect or anything; while its urban density/land use is top tier, its public transport is only okay - buses are preferred over metro in Singapore, and the most common way to get the airport is by taxi. But flaws aside its a good model to look to.

[clatteriing]

My best friend’s fish is pregnant again, and I think about my aunt in Hong Kong who releases fish back into the ocean once a year, buying them from restaurants boasting their seafood in tanks—feng shui, because if your restaurant’s got one arowana, translated from Chinese as “the dragon fish spits out the pearl,” it’ll do fine, but with two, pearls and pearls will rain down your meals, getting caught in oysters and abalone and lobster, and isn’t seafood so beautiful in this greatest music video of all time starring your arowana, oh arowana, you dimepiece of a fish, let me write odes for you, how you inspire black market bad boys and girls, and calling all supervillains, it’s time to unite, don those eyepatches, because the arowana can be trained like a cat or a dog by your side, and though it’s caged in a tank, it’s a dragon—a damn dragon that’ll let you take over the world, breathing fire, spitting out pearls, and my aunt stares at tanks of seafood in Kowloon, and of course, she can’t afford an arowana, a six-digit-cost-display- inside-like-a-Manet-painting-on-a-gilded- gold-plane, so she buys regular fish citizens, releasing them back into water, giving new meaning to spa days of fish eating away at your dead skin—the Buddhist lifestyle of giving back, and oh, how I wish my best friend’s gold fish was pregnant with an arowana—maybe mommy goldfish could first grow fifty times its size, a superhero giving birth to a supervillain, and yes, I know it’s impossible, but just just imagine those pearls and pearls raining on enough meals to feed everyone in Hong Kong, and I think about all the little boys and girls staring at tanks outside of restaurants, trying to grab onto a lobster tail— the adventure—give me some pearls—and fire.

Triple Sonnet for Dragons Spitting Out Pearls by Dorothy Chan

[kply-industries]

Planes over Kowloon

[lu-shh]

I begin the re-telling of my time in Hong Kong and Vietnam with a sad prologue: The phone that I took all my photos on while I was away has since died before I could get all the photos off it, so the visual storytelling of these posts will be reliant on Snapchat and Instagram posts, so bear with…

This one-month trip to Vietnam (via Hong Kong) had been a long time coming. Let’s be super dramatic and say it’s been 22 years coming. Why? Because my Mum is from Vietnam and until this trip, neither me or my two younger siblings had ever been. And considering we’ve grown up identifying probably more with my Mum’s Asian side than say my Dad’s Pacific Island side (well it’s been that way for me anyway,) it was a huge deal to finally be going to the “motherland”.

Before heading to Vietnam though, we were stopping over in Hong Kong for five days (just FYI: I LOVE Hong Kong guys). The last time I’d been to Hong Kong was at the beginning of 2015 (for 14 hours haha) but the rest of my family hadn’t been for 11 years. We have family friends who have an apartment there and kindly let us stay with them.

Auckland to Sydney to Hong Kong (Day/Night 1):

We flew out of Auckland bright and early at 6am with Qantas, had a very speedy stopover in Sydney before hopping on another plane to Hong Kong. More than 10 hours later we touched down on Hong Kong soil.

I actually am chuffed to be back in HK, believe it or not 🇭🇰

A post shared by Anya Truong-George (@anya_linh) on Dec 16, 2017 at 1:21am PST

  Oh, side note was absolutely freezing! Coming from New Zealand which was starting summer and having only packed summer clothes for warm Vietnam we knew we’d have to go shopping the next day if we were to survive the next four days.

The rest of the night was super chill. We were all very tired from the flight so went to bed early, ready for a busy day (of shopping the next day).

Day 2: Shopping, eating, more shopping

It would be kind of ridiculous to go to Hong Kong and not go shopping. Ok, there are plenty of other things you can do, but seeing as we needed warmer clothes this was the plan for our first full day in HK.

⇒Fun fact: Hong Kong don’t have GST (goods and services tax/ VAT), which means everything you buy in Hong Kong is pretty much automatically cheaper than what you’d find in New Zealand (pretty much the equivalent of duty free prices).

First things first though was food. We headed to Lai Chi Kok, a suburb in New Kowloon to a restaurant called The Salted Pig. Definitely not traditional, but still super yum. I personally ordered the Sauteed Octapus, Chorizo and Potato, but we all ordered a lot and passed it around family-style.

After lunch and thoroughly stuffed, we headed to Mongkok which is known for its shopping and bustling streets (where in HK ain’t bustling though, let’s be real) – and shopped up a storm. A fave purchase was probably some plaid culottes (see below):

Apparently I’m more pumped for autumn this week than I’d previously realised 🍂🍁 #still #24 #degrees #tho

A post shared by Anya Truong-George (@anya_linh) on Feb 25, 2018 at 7:55pm PST

  With arms full of shopping bags we headed out for dinner (I can’t quite remember where we went) and then continued walking through the streets of Mongkok. I really love the buzzing, busy atmosphere of Hong Kong at night. The neon lights really help bring the place to life in a way that you just can’t find in New Zealand.

And that was pretty much Day 1. Pretty low key, but the next day we ditched the “oldies” and headed to Disneyland (aka my second home). Stay tuned for more, pals.

Have you been to Hong Kong? What was your highlight? Or, if you haven’t been, what would you love to see? Let me know below!

  5 days in Hong Kong (Part 1) I begin the re-telling of my time in Hong Kong and Vietnam with a sad prologue: The phone that I took all my photos on while I was away has since died before I could get all the photos off it, so the visual storytelling of these posts will be reliant on Snapchat and Instagram posts, so bear with...

[maporp]

TSUI CHIHANG

1996.12.10 LINE COOK TGPY_03

tw: body image

He’s born to a girl who’s barely 20 and a man who’s more of a myth than an actual human being, a story to be told to Chihang to make him feel better about the swift abandonment he can’t remember.

Fat kids with poor eyesight and niche hobbies get picked last, get picked on. He doesn’t tell Ma about it, because it’s pointless in worrying her, and everyone knows the truth about it. There’s a boy who saves up his milk boxes throughout the week until they spoil and throws them at Chihang on his way home. There’s a girl who smiles and laughs at him as if teasing the ugly fat kid is some sort of fun game. Ma says he shouldn’t worry about them, her words fall on deaf ears.

Ma meets a guy on a plane when she’s flying somewhere over the South China Sea, serving overpriced wine to business men who don’t look twice at people like her. Only Jihoon looks twice, and a third time. She calls it a whirlwind love affair, one that sees her pregnant within three months and married within six and Chihang gets packaged off to a place called Daegu to fit like a puzzle piece jammed into the wrong spot into their new family narrative.

Kids in Korea are like kids in Hong Kong. No one likes the new boy. The fat boy, the boy who can’t speak Korean, the foreigner. He learns slang before he learns proper words, learns that the girl he likes calls him a “fat fuck” behind his back and even his only friend just feels sorry for him. He doesn’t tell Ma about the disgust he feels with himself, the way self-hatred clings like a second skin and he can’t shake it off, the way he wishes he was just someone else.

Jihoon tells him this: the problem is Chihang with he’s too soft, a residual effect of a boy growing up without a father trying to make sense of himself with no one to look up to. A man is supposed to be tough, to be strong, to be confident. Chihang can’t check off a single box, pathetic. “Don’t you have a rolemodel to look up to?” Chihang doesn’t bother to answer, they both know the answer is no.

He runs two kilometers a day but can’t seem to lose himself. The weight goes, features go from soft to sharp, people call him handsome but it doesn’t make a difference. He’s still Tsui Chihang the same fat little fuck from the shitty part of New Kowloon. Cosmetic changes don’t make a difference.

Adult life is a disappointment by his own design. He fails the college exam twice, gets fired from the halfway decent job Jihoon gets him, and takes the rest of his savings, and some money Ma has to sneak to him to land in Seoul on his ass with nothing to show for but a shit job and a shittier apartment.

“Ma, is this how you’d dream I’d grow up?” “Well no, but I’m proud of you anyways.” “Glad one of us is.”

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 2.10

1258 – Mongol invasions: Baghdad falls to the Mongols, bringing the Islamic Golden Age to an end. 1306 – In front of the high altar of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries, Robert the Bruce murders John Comyn, sparking the revolution in the Wars of Scottish Independence. 1355 – The St Scholastica Day riot breaks out in Oxford, England, leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days. 1502 – Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on his second voyage to India. 1567 – Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, is found strangled following an explosion at the Kirk o' Field house in Edinburgh, Scotland, a suspected assassination. 1712 – Huilliches in Chiloé rebel against Spanish encomenderos. 1763 – French and Indian War: The Treaty of Paris ends the war and France cedes Quebec to Great Britain. 1814 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Champaubert ends in French victory over the Russians and the Prussians. 1840 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. 1846 – First Anglo-Sikh War: Battle of Sobraon: British defeat Sikhs in the final battle of the war. 1861 – Jefferson Davis is notified by telegraph that he has been chosen as provisional President of the Confederate States of America. 1862 – American Civil War: A Union naval flotilla destroys the bulk of the Confederate Mosquito Fleet in the Battle of Elizabeth City on the Pasquotank River in North Carolina. 1906 – HMS Dreadnought, the first of a revolutionary new breed of battleships, is christened. 1920 – Józef Haller de Hallenburg performs the symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea, celebrating restitution of Polish access to open sea. 1920 – About 75% of the population in Zone I votes to join Denmark in the 1920 Schleswig plebiscites. 1923 – Texas Tech University is founded as Texas Technological College in Lubbock, Texas. 1930 – The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng launches the failed Yên Bái mutiny in hope of overthrowing French protectorate over Vietnam. 1933 – In round 13 of a boxing match at New York City's Madison Square Garden, Primo Carnera knocks out Ernie Schaaf. Schaaf dies four days later. 1936 – Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italian troops launch the Battle of Amba Aradam against Ethiopian defenders. 1939 – Spanish Civil War: The Nationalists conclude their conquest of Catalonia and seal the border with France. 1940 – The Soviet Union begins mass deportations of Polish citizens from occupied eastern Poland to Siberia. 1943 – World War II: Attempting to completely lift the Siege of Leningrad, the Soviet Red Army engages German troops and Spanish volunteers in the Battle of Krasny Bor. 1947 – The Paris Peace Treaties are signed by Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland and the Allies of World War II. 1954 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam. 1962 – Cold War: Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. 1964 – Melbourne–Voyager collision: The aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collides with and sinks the destroyer HMAS Voyager off the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, killing 82. 1967 – The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified. 1972 – Ras Al Khaimah joins the United Arab Emirates, now making up seven emirates. 1984 – Kenyan soldiers kill an estimated 5000 ethnic Somali Kenyans in the Wagalla massacre. 1989 – Ron Brown is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, becoming the first African American to lead a major American political party. 1996 – IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov in chess for the first time. 2003 – France and Belgium break the NATO procedure of silent approval concerning the timing of protective measures for Turkey in case of a possible war with Iraq. 2009 – The communications satellites Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251 collide in orbit, destroying both. 2013 – Thirty-six people are killed and 39 others are injured in a stampede in Allahabad, India, during the Kumbh Mela festival. 2016 – South Korea decides to stop the operation of the Kaesong joint industrial complex with North Korea in response to the launch of Kwangmyŏngsŏng-4. 2018 – Nineteen people are killed and 66 injured when a Kowloon Motor Bus double decker on route 872 in Hong Kong overturns.

[silverfootstepswrites]

title Up summary Wishful thinking gets you nowhere. pairing Itasaku, Tobisaku rating hide the children

Part i | Part ii | Part iii (here) | Part iv | Part v | Part vi | Part vii | Part viii | Part ix | Part x | Part xi | Part xii | Part xiii | Part xiv | Part xv | Part xvi | Part xvii | Part xviii | Part xix | Part xx | Part xxi | Part xxii | Part xxiii | Part xxiv | Part xxv | Part xxvi | Part xxvii | Part xxviii | Part xxix | Part xxx | Part xxxi | Part xxxii | Part xxxiii | Part xxxiv | Part xxxv | Part xxxvi | Part xxxvii| Part xxxviii | Part xxxix | Part XL (it ends here)

If there was anything she wished she had known before this life, it was to get used to strange ceilings. Sakura couldn’t even begin to count the number of times she had squinted up, not recognizing the water stains. 

But this time, as her eyes opened, she recognized the crystal chandelier. The eggshell ceilings. She remembered specifying to the designer that she hadn’t wanted white. The walls of her mother’s apartment had been painted too white. It was probably to make the run-down place look cleaner somehow. But the harsh color seemed to repel life. Repel them. 

As she blinked, she saw a wisp of smoke rise up toward that not-white ceiling. 

“...wei...” she said. There was a pause. And then she heard a sigh.

“Shit. I forgot.”

The mattress dipped. She heard him roll out of bed. The door to the balcony opened. Cool air gusted in for a second before the door closed. Sakura sat up in time to see a very naked Tobirama puffing on his cigarette outside. He sucked in a few breaths before he flicked the lit cigarette over the edge of the balcony. Down onto the city below. 

Their eyes met when he slipped back into the room. He waved the rest of the smoky air out behind him as he shut the door.

“I forgot,” Tobirama said again, “My bad.”

Sakura rubbed the heel of her hand against her temple. 

“Diu,” she cursed. And then she looked toward the window again. The waters of Victoria Harbor were black, same as the sky. “Did I sleep at all?”

“Maybe half an hour. Thought I’d finally screwed you unconscious like I promised,” he sighed, almost sounding wistful. Sakura laughed, rolling onto her stomach. She liked this side of him- a little arrogant, just a little crass. 

“Dumbass,” she muttered under her breath. She reached for her phone on the nightstand. There were a few missed calls. A text from Tenten letting her know that the night market was okay. Which made her remember something.

“I hear you had some run-ins with the Red Arrows. Something about them smuggling girls out Causeway Bay,” Sakura commented. Tobirama snorted. The mattress shifted when he sat down.

“It was some brats. Blue lanterns that aren’t even technically part of his crew. I had my boys teach them a lesson but it’s nothing to kill over,” he replied. 

“I bet he did it on purpose. Kabuto’s been pissy ever since Hashirama gave you Happy Valley when we took it from the Suns,” she sighed. She looked at him again. He was sitting up against the headboard, arms crossed behind his neck. He had the same tattoo of Guan Yu as his older brother- only it was on the opposite arm. The ancient general glowered his judgment on her so she turned back to her phone.

Inuzuka-kai wants 15 keys a week. Should I cut a deal? Charlie texted her. 

“Technically, Happy Valley is run by the city as part of Wan Chai. And since Wan Chai is mine...” Tobirama trailed off, his self-satisfaction obvious. Sakura rolled her eyes.

Fuck them, she typed back. Let them know that the Hyuuga’s would be happy to pay double for that.

Said deal as soon as I said Hyuuga. Thanks, boss, Charlie messaged back.

“Sure. Why don’t you run for city council while you’re at it?” she scoffed. He moved. She felt his weight settle half on her back. She immediately tossed her phone aside before he could read over her shoulder.

“Relax. How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not trying to spy on you?” he chuckled against her shoulder blade. He kissed it once. Moving up to kiss the back of her neck. She swatted him aside. 

“I’ll believe you when you’re dead and your ghost confesses the same thing to me,” Sakura sniffed. Still, she didn’t resist when he rolled her onto her back. His hands rested on either side of her head. His shadow loomed over her. 

“Look, Kennedy town is Kabuto’s, Central is yours, Wan Chai is mine-”

“You know. I helped you take parts of Wan Chai,” Sakura interrupted, her eyes narrowing. She reached up, caressed the side of his face. Tobirama caught her hand, holding it tighter against his cheek.

“And who supplied the guns you needed to take the Mid-Levels? Don’t forget that,” he said in the same, silken voice. She smirked. She pulled her hand from his grasp. 

“Oh, I thought I’d already showed my thanks.” Her hand slipped lower. A short hiss escaped through his teeth as she squeezed. 

“But I don’t mind doing it again,” she added. She laughed as his full weight fell on top of her. Her hands linking behind his neck. And the laugh turned to a gasp when his teeth sank into her neck.

It was only later, hair even messier, that he got around to asking his question. They had known each other for long enough. She could tell when he was trying to get at something. 

“So tell me about your new man,” said Tobirama, 

Sakura twisted her head around to look at him. The tattoo of the serpent on his left forearm had always bothered her. It glared like it was hiding something. She nudged it with her foot until Tobirama turned to look at her too.

“You got any more smokes?” she asked. Tobirama just stared. She jerked her head toward the window.

They sat on opposite ends of the balcony, facing each other. Sakura hunched her shoulders against the chill. She leaned forward, her eyes already asking. Sighing, Tobirama met her halfway, lighting her cigarette with the end of his. 

“You know, your lighter works just fine. Why do you always do that?” he asked, sounding more annoyed than he actually was. He leaned back, exhaling a stream of smoke. Sakura leaned forward, elbow on her knee. Her nipples tightened in the cool breeze. 

“It’s kind of sexy, don’t you think?” she replied, grinning around her cigarette. She shivered again. The wind tousled her hair. 

“Put on some clothes if you’re cold,” nagged Tobirama. She shook her head. She pulled her cigarette from her mouth, pinching it between her pointer and middle fingers. 

“I like it. Besides, you’re not wearing anything either,” she said, gesturing toward him with the cigarette. He flexed the muscles in his chest and stomach when he saw her looking. Sakura rolled her eyes, pretending not to smile.

“Big, tough man,” she snorted. 

“Are you done avoiding my question now?” questioned Tobirama. Sakura lifted her cigarette. When she exhaled, she let it leave her mouth in a cloud. Smoke engulfed her face for just a second until the wind stole it away. She rested her forearm on her knee.

“I don’t have a new man. I just saw the waka-gashira of the Uchiha-gumi when he stopped by my shop. Only now he’s the Kumicho,” Sakura finally admitted. She smiled around her cigarette. “The head honcho. The big man.” But Tobirama was unsmiling as he listened. He lifted his cigarette to his lips, turning his head away from her to look out at the water. 

“You always had a thing for high-ranking men,” he remarked. 

“Who?” Sakura said, voice innocent. Tobirama turned his head back to stare at her.

“My brother. Me. Now this kid,” he listed. 

Sakura tilted her head. “He’s probably a little older than me. Then am I a kid too?” 

Tobirama made a face. “Don’t remind me.” 

And then it was Sakura’s turn to frown.

“Also I never slept with your brother. I don’t do that shit anymore,” she said. Her tone drew his attention again. He studied her. His eyes were sharp, like his brother. But he was sharp in a different way. Like he was reading some invisible words written across her forehead. 

“You never even considered it?” he questioned, like he was afraid of the answer. Shaking her head, Sakura thought back.

“Hashirama needed my skills and I needed to be needed. Sex had nothing to do with it... although I might have said yes if he asked,” Sakura responded. Tobirama glared at her for a moment longer. And then, heaving a sigh, he snubbed his cigarette out on the edge of the balcony.

“Look at us two lonely losers,” he lamented. 

“I’m lonely. You’re just an idiot,” she corrected, smiling. She looked out at Victoria Bay with him. At the blinking lights of the city that continued to live and breathe with or without them. 

“Hurry up and find a nice girl, Tobirama. A man like you shouldn’t be alone,” Sakura urged. Tobirama closed his eyes.

“Fuck you, Sakura.”

“You already do, Tobirama.”

They laughed together, leaning towards each other. Their foreheads almost touching. Sharing that one incredibly intimate space. Like she was Hong Kong island and he was Kowloon. Within sight, but an alien city looming in the distance. 

When she left for Japan in the morning, he didn’t wake to say goodbye. 

Tenten came to pick her up, packed suitcases already in the trunk. As Zabuza drove them to the airport, Sakura stared up at the grey skies. She was grateful that Tenten didn’t bother her with small talk in the car or on the plane.

Her apartment in Minato had a view of the Rainbow Bridge. She didn’t remember how much Uncle Hashirama had paid for it. The big figures didn’t really faze her anymore. All she knew was that it had heated floors and the doorman never asked questions. That was enough to keep her happy.

The city of Tokyo certainly had a different feel from Hong Kong. Everything in Tokyo was too clean. Immaculate subway lines and sparkling buildings. If Hong Kong was eggshell, then Tokyo was the purest white. 

She napped on the tatami floors. Finally able to bask in the absolute silence that came with being alone. Chin tucked into her chest, she let the living hum of the city buzz under her cheek. News playing low on the TV. The blue glow outlined her as she slept.

She was glad when evening rolled around and she finally had an excuse to leave her apartment. She entered the club through the back door. Sai was already sweeping and moving boxes of liquor up from storage. 

“Ah, welcome back, Mama. How was your trip?” he greeted her, pausing in the doorway to the basement. Sakura smiled. 

“Same old. Nothing interesting,” she answered. And then she looked around the club. The girls wouldn’t start arriving for a couple more hours. Some of them even arrived with customers on their arms, which always made the club look busy. 

“I’m going upstairs. Drop in before it gets too crazy. I’ve got to catch you up on some things,” was all she said before she headed upstairs. She unlocked her office door and slipped inside. She snapped the lock shut behind her. 

Her office was eggshell- just the way she liked it. The left side of the room was made of glass. It looked out on the streets of Ginza below. The flickering neon signs were already lighting up. Their brazen pinks and purples blinking in unsynchronized patterns. She was thankful that she had followed Tenten’s advice and gotten the tinted glass. It prevented her office from lighting up like a disco ball. And when even that light got annoying, she had blackout curtains to drown it all out. 

There were two black sofas facing the windows. On one of them sat Tommy Wong. He twisted his neck to look back at her.

“Wai, Mama,” he greeted her. And then he pointed toward her desk.

“Pick one. It’s a gift for you.”

“Stop breaking into my office. One day I’ll be in a bad mood and I might shoot you,” Sakura warned, voice flat. He shrugged.

“You said to use the key during emergencies. Every day I don’t see you feels like an emergency,” he quipped. Sakura grimaced. Throwing his head back, he laughed.

“The rumors are true. You really do hate smooth-talkers. Okay. Relax, Aunt Cheng. Seriously, go look.”

There were three sets of car keys lined up across the tabletop. She stared at them, eyes narrowing. 

“Where did you get these from? I’m not driving around some Yakuza’s stolen car and getting shot for it,” she began to scold. He wagged his finger from side to side.

“No way. Remember a couple years ago when we set up that chop shop near Aberdeen?” he reminded her. Sakura nodded. She remembered how she had lent quite a few of her best men for that. It was a little too close to their territory for the Suns and their boys had gotten into several scuffles until she had cut a deal with the Red Pole in charge. 

“Been sending parts out to my buddy in Germany. He sent these over for us as thanks,” he explained. And then he looked up at the ceiling, thinking.

“Actually, you can have all three if you want, Mama. I can always get more,” he amended. Snorting, Sakura grabbed the keys and tossed them back to him He caught two out of the air. The other set he just barely missed. He stooped to pick it up. 

“I don’t know what I’d do with three either,” she responded. 

“Sell them. Go talk to Tobirama. I’m sure he knows some new money who’s looking to splurge. I’ll let you keep most of the profit. Just give me 20%,” she instructed. She moved behind her desk, sank into her chair. 

“Is that all, Tommy?” she then asked. He got to his feet, stretching his arms above his head.

“S’all for now. Just wanted to brighten your day.... night. Whatever. I’ll stop by tomorrow,” he announced, heading to the door. 

“Why don’t you stay for a drink? Moegi’s working tonight,” she called after him. He paused in the doorway. Like he wanted to say yes. And when he turned to her, it was with a cheeky grin and empty eyes.

“Nah. Always keep the ladies wanting more. Right, Auntie?” 

It was business as usual for a while. The calm was a little disconcerting, to be honest. Although, calm was a relative term. In comparison to her beginning days in Tokyo, things were calm, perhaps. 

“Huh... you think it’s gotten boring around here?” Sakura suddenly asked, looking over at Tenten. The woman gaped at her. And then stared pointedly at the man writhing on the ground. Cusses and spittle flew from his mouth. His dislocated arms jerked around like two flopping fish. The noise irritated Sakura enough that she grabbed her gun and unloaded two bullets into his skull. The silencer didn’t really silence the noise. Just sort of muffled the sharpness of it so it didn’t echo as far. 

She looked back at Tenten, still waiting for an answer.

“Boss, you just shot a guy in the eye. How can you say this is boring?” Tenten demanded. Sakura took a closer look.

“Oh. Didn’t even realize,” she replied, voice flat.

Sakura wiped her gun clean with the end of her coat.

“Clean this up. I’m going for a walk,” she ordered.

Before her underlings could reply, she brushed past them. Down the narrow alley. There weren’t even rats or garbage to kick aside. That was how sterile this city was. 

When she emerged on the main street, she melded into the crowd. The smells of alcohol and fried food assaulted her senses. Music pounded out from clubs. Guys and girls stood outside with their flyers, harassing people to come inside. The stink of sweat, cologne, and perfume brewed together to form the fragrance of the city. In her youth, she had called all this glamour. Now she knew a better word for it all.

“Shit.”

She glanced around. This wasn’t territory that she was unfamiliar with. So many signs had changed as businesses went under and new ones were born to take their places. But she did catch the flickering blue sign for a place that she knew. With one last glance over her shoulder, she ducked into the alley and walked down the stone steps into the bar. 

“Welco- ah. You’re not dead yet?”

“Pinot Noir,” she said, not looking at him. She pulled off her coat, tossing it onto an empty barstool. And then she climbed into the one beside it. Elbows up on the bar, she let out a deep sigh. 

“Good to see you too. How’ve you been? Wow, your conversation skills are great as always, Sakura-san,” the bartender said, dryly as he placed the wine in front of her. 

“Sik si la lei,” she snorted in return as she took the glass. She took a sip, finally looking him in the face. Kankuro put his hand on his chest.

“Chill out, daai lou. You know I don’t speak Cantonese,” he said. 

“I said, eat shit, Kankuro,” Sakura translated for him. Kankuro nodded, pretending to take notes on his palm. Even her prickliest attitude never seemed to faze him. 

And then he noticed that the bottom of her coat was dark and stained with something. 

“Didn’t see rain in the forecast. Is that what I think it is?” he asked, expression wary. Sakura looked him dead in the face as she drank more wine.

“Why bother asking me if you already know the answer?” she said in return. He made a noise of disgust. Reaching under the bar, he found a bottle of air freshener and spritzed her coat. Sakura watched all of this with a faint smile. Like a little lemon scent would suddenly make everything better. 

“I’d figure a bigshot like you wouldn’t have time to visit anymore. Is it a special occasion?” asked Kankuro, fanning the air with a folded up menu. Sakura shrugged, swirling her wine around in the glass.

“Just taking a breather,” was all she said. And then she pulled her box of cigarettes out of her coat pocket. Held it up for him to see.

Kankuro sighed. Tossing a towel over his shoulder, he gestured toward the mostly-empty bar.

“Like it’ll bother the other customers. Just let me know if you need anything. Take it easy,” he answered, moving further down the bar to chat with the other customers. 

It was a quiet, little place. Clean and a little elegant. But not snobby enough to attract a crowd. The people that knew it liked it. And the people who didn’t never bothered to find out. It was a shitty business model and Sakura had wondered more than once just how they kept this place open. 

Kankuro said nothing else to her that night. He stopped by once to refill her glass but that was it.

She lit up her cigarette. She waited for the paper to sizzle before she let the flame die. She rubbed her thumb along the dragon on the side of the lighter. It was begin to wear down, smoothing away at the edges. 

The stool to her left scraped against the floor. 

A man settled into his seat with a sigh. Sakura glared at him out of the corners of her eyes. There were plenty of open seats at this bar. She regretted wearing such a skimpy black dress- it always drew attention. But it couldn’t be helped. The second-in-command of the Sarutobi-gumi was a notorious womanizer. A little skin always did wonders to persuade him. 

The meeting with him hadn’t gone perfectly, but he had been kind enough to point out a rat to her. The rat that was probably being dismantled by Sai as she sat here drinking her wine. She wondered if he would toss the pieces into the ocean. Or would he dump the corpse in Kennedy Town as a warning to Kabuto? His creativity always impressed her. 

“Say, onee-chan, have you got a smoke?” 

That voice.

Puckering her lips around her cigarette, she turned to look. Uchiha Itachi looked back at her, his cheek in his hand. His eyelashes were lovely and long as he blinked. She blew her smoke out at him just to watch him blink again. Holding her cigarette between her pointer and middle, she smiled.

“Hou ma, daai lou,” she replied. 

“Oh, I know that one. That’s hello, right?” Itachi guessed. When she didn’t respond, he pulled a cigarette out of his coat. He put it in his mouth with a pointed look at her lighter sitting on the bar. She leaned in instead, pressing the tip of her cigarette to his. Eyes locking as the paper glowed red. Straightening, she leaned her elbow on the bar.

“The boss of the Uchiha-gumi stopping in for a casual drink?” she asked. She reached for her glass. Spinning it on the bar until she found her lipstick stains. Itachi watched her fingers.

“You’re in Uchiha territory, Sakura. How long did you think it would take for me to notice you?” As he spoke, his eyes traveled up to her face. 

“What makes you think I wanted you to notice me, daai lou? That’s pretty arrogant of you,” she teased. And then she lifted her glass to take a sip. Her eyes never leaving his. She saw his lips quirk downwards.

“I wanted to ask why people reported hearing a gunshot not too far from here.” His voice was suddenly all business. It soured the mood. Sakura clicked her tongue, leaning back. 

“Who knows?"

“Does it have anything to do with reports of your meetings with the Inuzuka-kai?” he pressed. 

Sakura sighed. 

“Look, since you’re cute, I’ll give you two pieces of advice.” She dunked her cigarette into her wine, listening to it fizzle and die. 

“The first is to stop looking at the Inuzuka-kai all the time. If I were you, I’d be keeping an eye on the Yamanaka-kai. My boys tell me that they’ve been buying up big stocks. I don’t know how you yakuza run things, but my boys at least tell me whenever they move money that big,” 

She watched Itachi’s forehead wrinkle. He looked down at the backs of his hands, as if they somehow held all the answers. 

“Yamanaka Inoichi and I exchanged sake cups. We’re sworn brothers,” he stated as if she wouldn’t know that already. 

“Itachi, I’ve seen mothers sell their own children and sons kill their own fathers. This world is fucked up. Don’t put your faith in absolutes,” she replied. Itachi lifted his chin, meeting her eyes again.

“What’s your second piece of advice?” he demanded.

She lifted her hand to her chin. A coy smile spread across her mouth.

“There’s a reason why the smaller, rattier Inuzuka-kai is still surviving after all this time. Think of who their friends are. And when you have the right questions, come find me again.” When she had finished speaking, she leaned forward. Itachi was very still as she kissed just above his left eyebrow. She left an obscenely large amount of money on the bar. 

“Kankuro, when you get a chance, burn that for me,” Sakura called out, pointing at her coat crumpled up on the stool.

“Aw, come on! Not again!” griped the bartender, throwing his hands up in the air. 

“You’re a peach,” she said, pretending not to hear his complaints. And then, turning back to Itachi, she smiled. 

“Bye-bye, handsome.”

She walked back into the cold. Brazen, shoulders bare. Lingering on the sight of Itachi’s face. She liked that look of surprise on that normally stoic man. Liked how she could shift those expressions with a word or two.

She had barely made it a block when a black car pulled up beside her. Driving so obscenely slow. The back window rolled down and Sai peered out. His face was still flecked with red. Even the collar of his grey shirt was stained dark- almost black in the wettest spots. 

“You finished early?” she asked, still walking. The car rolled along with her.

“Of course, Aunt.”

Sakura stopped. And the car jerked to a stop too. The door opened. 

“Look into all the executives of the Uchiha-gumi. I’m getting a bad feeling,” she ordered as she ducked into the car.

“Of course, Aunt.”

Part i | Part ii | Part iii (here) | Part iv | Part v | Part vi | Part vii | Part viii | Part ix | Part x | Part xi | Part xii | Part xiii | Part xiv | Part xv | Part xvi | Part xvii | Part xviii | Part xix | Part xx | Part xxi | Part xxii | Part xxiii | Part xxiv | Part xxv | Part xxvi | Part xxvii | Part xxviii | Part xxix | Part xxx | Part xxxi | Part xxxii | Part xxxiii | Part xxxiv | Part xxxv | Part xxxvi | Part xxxvii| Part xxxviii | Part xxxix | Part XL (it ends here)

[bluemagic-girl]

‘Freedom of creation is something important for me’: Hong Kong artist describes depicting protests

Amid the conflict of police batons and protesters’ rallying cries, no less than one Hong Kong artist is laboring to end up the pen certainly is mightier than the sword.

Twenty-five-year-old Kay Wong, who used to be born in Hong Kong, has documented thru her art work some of the summer season’s most crucial moments: violent standoffs between police and protesters, a world airport pressured to flooring its planes and the plight of on a regular basis voters thru all of it.

“I think the freedom of creation is something important for me, and I’m afraid that if something happened to the freedom of creation, we’ll just be lost,” mentioned Kay, explaining she refuses to simply cover at house whilst others chance their lives.

For inspiration, Kay mentioned she pours over newspaper pictures or attends rallies during the town, strolling some of the extra radical Hong Kongers and taking photos together with her mobile phone.

Kay mentioned she believes the police used to offer protection to its voters.

Perhaps no longer anymore, despite the fact that. Newscom

Police and protesters conflict in Hong Kong’s Kowloon space on Aug. 24, 2019. “Maybe now, today, lots of people think that the protests [are] changing because they are not peaceful anymore,” Kay mentioned. “But after a few times of peaceful protests, the government and maybe also the police did something bad [to] us, and just so many people just get angry … [so] they try to use [a] different way to fight.”

Still, she mentioned she hopes her art work is helping display in a extra non-public mild a war that is entered its fourth month.

“We,” she mentioned, relating to artists, “just try our very best to do what little part that we can do.”

from Moose Gazette https://ift.tt/34bvDgk via moosegazette.net