oh the fragility my valentine | ky shots

k y .

"you're too
precious"

Water tastes different here.

The tap in my room runs endlessly, a cold stream running steadily down my drain and only God knows where else. I wonder where the pipes in my room lead to, I've never thought about it before. I know how they work back home in the house, have fixed them myself when we sprung a leak under the kitchen sink but I don't know where these ones go. This building must have so many pipes, do they meet up with each other or all run parallel but even then, wouldn't they just go to the same place?

The boy in the mirror stares uncertainly at me and I think about when we did this two days ago, right before going to see Emmett. When I shut my eyes, the sound of the tap sounds a little bit like a wave rushing to shore.

I open the cupboard beneath the sink and there is the pipe for the sink. When I lay my hand on it, it's freezing cold from running the water through it for the past little while. I stare down at the cut in the bottom of the cupboard but it's too dark, I can't tell where the pipe meets the wall.

The water here tastes like it's been filled with chemicals, it tastes of nothing at all, but back home our water comes from a well beneath the house.

I know where the pipes go there.

My feet take me out of the bathroom and the sound of the tap fades. The apartment is empty save for me, mom is somewhere else. She's probably working on sponsorships or with Katelyn, which is good because I know the pipes aren't important, deep down I know it. I need to know where they lead.

So I hurry out of the apartment and make a beeline for the elevator. It stands to reason that they'd be on the lowest floor. There's a screen in the hallway, there always is. Panels light up beside me as I walk down the hall and Caesar's voice gives a running commentary on day two.

"Zenia's return, incredible right?"

"Yes yes, her loss was so heartbreaking, so good to have her back! I wonder though-"

"If she was the only one to be blessed or if we're looking at a repeat of the 80th?"

There's probably a boiler room in the basement, perhaps a way to filter water too, maybe even access to the sewers. The elevator arrives with a soft ding and the doors open to reveal Teddy Ursa, a Victor from Six that I met last year. I nod at him, a reflex working the corners of my mouth up into a grin. My hand shakes as I press the button for the main floor, knowing full well he'll ask questions if I try to go to the basement. I can't handle questions.

Still, there's his brow knit together with concern, those puppy-dog eyes of his staring right into me and I realize he's been talking. I try to think back, to figure out what he's said but I didn't hear him. My eyes were on the muted screen on the wall, an aerial view of the arena and Emmett suddenly, so close.

"Ky, when did you last eat?" he asks me it like it isn't the first time.

My mouth opens and words tumble out, I don't know which ones. There's a list of standard responses in my head for cases like these because it's a game. The rules are to control facial expressions and to lie. If they catch you it's game over.

He wouldn't understand about the pipes.

So the next time the elevator doors open, I slip out of them as if I was wanting to go to floor eight all along.

Floor eight smells of bleach and despair, the last victor from Eight was Shelby, ten years ago now. I wonder if she looks at the doors in this hallway and sees ghosts. I've never spoken to her, she won the year after Opal stopped taking me. What if she likes ghosts?

I turn around the corner and open the door to the emergency stair. The sound echos within but there are screens here too on every landing. My feet tap out a rhythm as I move steadily down, round and round sterile white steps, hand gripping the metal bannister and forming calluses where I grip too tight.

The sound of metal hitting flesh echos.

"Watch the talons!"

Emmett is on the screen again and I'm on floor four, my heart is beating fast and I leap off the second step to the bottom, I'm not moving fast enough. I just need to find where the pipes go, I need to find where they go because my chest is too tight and I can hear Emmett on screen and when I look up, he's there.

I stop on the third-floor landing, eyes on him.

It was one kiss, that's all, just a kiss. It wasn't even Emmett's first and to him, I was probably already a memory, just a postcard on the wall in his head. So then why do I see those eyes of his gazing down at me in the soft light of a sunset when I shut my eyes at night to sleep?

What if it's guilt because I told him I loved him with my touch but I didn't with my voice and now I might never get the chance.

Even if it's foolish to love him, even if it's maybe not even love at all.

I push my hand against the wall and the screen bubbles beneath my touch, causing a brilliant white to pulse beneath my fingertips. The back of Emmett's head is in front of me, the camera focused on the mutt in front of him for the drama and I wish it would turn around, I want to see those eyes.

But I don't want anyone to have those eyes except me.

I get my wish.

The bird and I know it before he does because I watch as its talon swipes across his neck and I see the first bit of blood spurt out. If I shut my eyes, I won't believe it's happened so I watch as Emmett falls back into the shallow water and I curl my fist over the screen slowly. When our hands were intertwined, his fingers felt so strange between mine but not in a bad way.

It just felt new, kind of right.

I slide down the wall slowly so that I'm level with Emmett in the water and if I shut my eyes, I can remember the way it felt to feel the weight of him on top of me. It wasn't just the heaviness of him but the peace that came with it, the comfort of knowing that he was there.

Water washes over him and I wonder if he hears the waves. Blood seeps out of his neck to mix with the ocean water, it dyes it a deeper maroon, inking ponderously through the wet like clouds on a summer day.

His eyes shut.

The screen changes to a new fight.

I guess a part of me really thought that he was going to live, that he was going to somehow make it back and I could kiss him again, just to test it. Just to see if that hadn't all just been pre-game nerves or if we really had something.

But he's dead now so at least I don't have to worry anymore, I don't have to fear his death because there it was.

My legs have stopped working. I see them there beneath me, but they don't work. I can't stand up.

That's fine, the urgency is gone.

I already know where the pipes go.