The heavy silence that followed Haerin's simple declaration hung thick and fragile as a soap bubble in the pungent steam of the Rust Wok. Ah-Jin's back remained stubbornly turned, knuckles gleaming white as glaciers where he gripped the worn lip of the suspension-shield wok. The chromed spatula lay where he'd slammed it, a silent sentinel marking territory. Yeji watched him, the muscles of his broad back shifting slightly as his breath hitched, a tremor mastered instantly. Haerin, oblivious to the emotional shrapnel she'd scattered, just patted Bori complacently. Min-ji still wore the expression of someone who'd accidentally kicked a sacred relic, her mouth slightly open, searching for words that refused to form.
Then, without preamble, without turning around, Ah-Jin moved. It wasn't surrender; it was a controlled detonation of pent-up energy channeled into relentless action. He spun with startling speed, grabbed a wad of coarse grey noodles from a chilling tray with one hand, a cracked ceramic bowl with the other. He didn't look at the guests. His focus was entirely inward, like a man operating deep machinery by touch alone. A flick of the wrist slung the noodles into a hanging mesh strainer that plunged into a boiling cauldron of water beside the wok. Steam erupted violently.
He worked like a storm contained. Fingers danced – not with nervous energy, but with the brutal efficiency of muscle memory forged in fire. Dried Pitfire peppers crunched between his knuckles into gleaming flakes. A splash of oil smoked off the fiercely hot wok surface. The noodles flicked from the boiling water in a perfect arc, landing with a sizzling hiss that made Min-ji flinch. The peppers followed, their aroma instantly transforming the air from spice-laced steam into a physical thing, a shearing heat that clawed at sinuses, demanding attention. Globs of deep red fermented bean paste, glistening like volcanic mud, joined the chaos. Ah-Jin tossed the contents with a savage grace, the heavy wok seeming weightless in his grip, ash-blackened metal flashing in the harsh light. Seared vegetables – crunching alien tubers and bitter emerald greens scavenged from shielded rooftop plots – flew in. Throughout it all, his face remained a mask of grim concentration, eyes fixed on the swirling vortex of food, refusing to acknowledge the solemn trio at his counter. Raw ingredients met fire and became something else entirely under his furious orchestration.
He slammed three identical, chipped bowls onto the scratched counter with a sound like cracking ice. The spatula scoop transferred the noodles with brutal efficiency. Garnish was a single, precise knife-tap for a scattering of radioactive-bright pink pickled slivers on each peak. He shoved the bowls towards them – Yeji, Min-ji, Cho – with the back of his scarred hand, a dismissive motion that brooked no ceremony. Only one bowl went near the large wok, solitary amid the steam. His eyes never left the heat shimmer. The message was scorched into the air: *Eat, This is Kiri's Rule and then, go.*
And he was gone again, melting back into the roiling steam surrounding the wok, scrubbing already-clean metal with vicious intensity, his entire being radiating a force field of unwelcome obligation fulfilled.
Min-ji stared into the bowl before her. It was… intimidating. The noodles tangled like dark steel cables under a layer of violently red, slick paste. Chunks of unfamiliar vegetables glistened oilily. The pink slivers seemed to glow with unnatural malice. The sheer *power* of the aroma – chilies fierce enough to ignite tear ducts, underlying notes of funky fermentation – washed over her, a physical assault on her refined Upper Tier palate used to subtle, engineered flavors. Reflexively, despite the gut-rot's distant memory, her face contorted. Nose wrinkled. Lips curled. A shudder of pure, undisguised revulsion rippled through her shoulders. It was visceral, born from decades of privilege viewing Belt food as something hazardous, literally toxic.
"Hey!"
The sharp, indignant voice cut through the steam. Haerin stood beside Min-ji's stool, fists balled on her tiny hips, her freckled face scrunched in outrage. She pointed a small, accusing finger directly at Min-ji's disgusted expression. "You!" Her voice rang with absolute conviction. "Maama's Rule Number Thirteen says never, ever make bad faces at food!"
Min-ji jumped, flushing crimson under the hairline curls that escaped her usually impeccable coiffure. She snapped her head down to meet Haerin's fierce, unblinking stare. "I… I didn't…!" The lie died instantly under the child's unwavering gaze. She swallowed, the sound loud in the suddenly charged air beside the furious sizzling. Genuine shock warred with acute embarrassment. "Oh. Stars. I… I'm sorry. It smells… very strong." She stammered, utterly disarmed. This wasn't corporate maneuvering. This was foundational law, declared by a ghost and enforced by a six-year-old.
Haerin's stern glare didn't soften. "Strong is good," she countered firmly. "Appa makes best! and Strong beats sad!" She continued to stare, expectant, challenging. Fix it.
Min-ji took a shaky breath, a stylist faced with a moral absolute enforced by bristly fur and button eyes. She looked back at the terrifyingly red bowl. Kiri's Rule Thirteen. For Haerin. She picked up the thin, mismatched chopsticks. Took a precarious clump of glistening noodles. Closed her eyes. Committed to the fiery plunge.
The first real flavor wave exploded across her tongue – molten, breathtaking heat washing from the tempe doloso chili, potent enough to trigger a physical rush, a jolt of adrenaline. But beneath that inferno, clinging to the perfectly chewy, dense noodles, came layers: the deep, savoury funk of the fermented beans, smoky and complex, the counterpoint bite of the seared tubers, the essential fresh snap of the greens cutting through the richness. Not refined. Not elegant. But elemental. Satisfying on a level that bypassed subtlety and went straight for primal warmth. Her eyes flew open, wide with surprise. She chewed. Swallowed. Then managed a small, genuine sound – not a moan of pleasure exactly, but profound surprise that edged towards respect. "Oh," she breathed, voice hoarse from chili burn. "That's... incredible." She took another bite, slower, this time seeking the flavours beneath the blaze. She did blush again, this time in chagrined acknowledgement of her prejudice. "Please… convey my apologies to Maama's Rule," she murmured formally to Haerin. The child's glare instantly dissolved, replaced by a look of magnanimous acceptance. She nodded gravely. "Okay." Mission accomplished, she climbed onto the stool beside Yeji, contentedly swinging her legs.
Yeji had observed Min-ji's trial by fire with detached curiosity, her own bowl barely touched. Haerin's enforcement of Kiri's Rules fascinated her. It felt tangible, a ghost's hand guiding the living. Superstition? Or deep, stubborn love? "Haerin," Yeji asked gently, her voice deliberately soft to not alarm the child, "Is that another one of your Maama's rules? Not making faces at food?"
Haerin beamed, nodding vigorously. "Yep! Rule Thirteen! Maama hated mean faces!"
Min-ji, cautiously mastering the chili heat, leaned in slightly. "But Haerin... you never met your Maama?" Her question was hesitant, concerned she might invite another shockwave.
Instinctively, Haerin patted the little worn book bag slung securely across her front, resting protectively near Bori within. "Nope," she said brightly, completely unfazed. "But she left me Rules!" Her small chest puffed with pride. "She wrote it when I was a bump in bounce! Was living in her belly!" She patted her own stomach. "Wrote down all the Rules for Belly-Haerin. Every rule ever!"
Yeji felt a complex pang, sharp and wistful. A book written in the hopeful twilight before birth, anticipating a world she'd never see her daughter navigate. "She wrote them... for you?" Yeji pressed softly.
"Uh huh!" Haerin confirmed, completely unaware of the adults' quiet astonishment. "So she'd stay teaching! And Rule Thirteen says no ugly mouths at Appa's cooking." She frowned severely at Min-ji, as if anticipating a relapse. "So don't."
A subtle shift in the steam curtain near the wok. Ah-Jin's massive scraping spatula slowed for a fraction of a second. Just enough. "Haerin," his voice came low and rough but perfectly controlled. "Wok-room's messy and it's too loud, take Bori and go play upstairs."
Haerin looked momentarily stubborn. She sensed the shift, the gravity descending. But rule-above-all won. "Okay," she chirped reluctantly, hopping off the stool. She glanced at the adults. "Rule Nineteen says guests finish plates!" she announced solemnly, a final proclamation. Then, clutching Bori protectively to her chest, a small figure in the drifting steam, she slipped through the beads towards the narrow, steep stairs at the back of the shop. The sound of her light footsteps ascending faded quickly, swallowed by the relentless metallic groaning of the Belt deep below.
Silence descended again, thicker, weighted, brittle as spun glass left too close to the fire. It was interrupted only by Cho's methodical, ruthless scraping of his bowl – an act of deliberate focus, perhaps the only one available to him. His posture remained rigid, eyes cast down at the emptying dish. Yeji found her eyes drawn to Ah-Jin, his form indistinct but radiating tension. The question burned inside her, fueled by Haerin's innocent testimony and the fading echo of tiny footsteps: "what happened?" Now was the moment. Direct. Unflinching. Launch the question into the space Kiri herself had demanded someone occupy. Only the indispensable who shared such a space had earned this story. But Yeji? Min-ji?
For a long, suspended breath, Ah-Jin stayed locked in profile to them, motionless as the scarred wok itself. The rhythmic clang of his spatula on metal resumed – slower now. Each strike felt like a beat dragged, a reluctant drum counting down. Then it stopped. He carefully lowered the heavy tool onto a hook set into the side of the wok-frame. He didn't turn immediately. He stood hunched for a long breath, the steam swirling around him like spirits. When he finally pivoted, it wasn't towards Yeji, nor Min-ji. His dark, grimed face, etched with deep lines that spoke of perpetual struggle, turned squarely towards Cho. His eyes, flat and unreadable as old river stones at dusk, fixed on the General.
Who kept scraping, slower now, the metallic shriek shrinking to a whisper on ceramic.
Ah-Jin's voice, when it finally shattered the silence, wasn't gruff neutrality or simmering rage. It was stripped bone. A dry recounting of facts that carved troughs into his soul. "She got sick." A statement. A diagnosis whispered in the stale Belt air for the first time outside Haerin's earshot. "The blood inside her was depleating, the cells were dying at an incredible speed" He gestured vaguely towards his abdomen with a thick, stained thumb. "It was not something doctor's here in belt could fix."
Min-ji instinctively stiffened. Yeji remained utterly still, absorbing the inflections hidden beneath the blunt syllables – desperation.
"I took her everywhere inside the belt, couldn't find any answer or anything so we tool all the money we had and we left from here with harein inside her belly" she said.
He turned away from Cho, towards Yeji and Min-ji. His eyes swept over their clean, if practical clothes, their untouched but respectable pre-taste. "I brought her top-side." The words cracked like stone splitting. "It shone like a fresh-scrubbed shroud, those towers, they were Clean, sterile and were like instruments." The bitterness became acid.
"Told them she needed treatment. We were Level Below-Ashes, we were like dust." He held up his calloused hand, as if showing the invisible mark. "They… looked." A finger deeply etched with grime tapped the side of his temple. "Looked here and then." He chopped his hand down through the air. "Get Out, that's what they told us, it was a solid decision and then shut the door on our faces."
His gaze burned into them, demanding acknowledgement. "Then we caught the drift lines, we got two stops down to Cabinet Station." He named the infamous medical satellite catering exclusively to middling-ranked corporate drones. "They told us to Get out too"
The flat delivery couldn't hide the shattering impact.
"Then we crossed the shiny bay, I pleaded and then i was shoved." He described crushing the small, precious cred-stick into a Duty Nurse's vast iris scanner. He described Kiri – paler than sheet metal, shivering under layers deemed unsanitary by the receptionist in plastics. Then: "Regulation VI-Alpha. Settlement Zeta Residents." Yeji knew it instantly – the codified exclusion for slum dwellers posed as pandemic control. "Biohazard potential. That's what they called us." His voice dropped impossibly low, a growl pried out through gritted teeth. "You call us plague-rats?" The sudden violence in his whisper cracked the air.
Cho's bowl clattered suddenly. Fugitive steam collected a bead of moisture on his weathered cheek that wasn't sweat.
Ah-Jin paced now – two sharp spines to the wok, two back. His shadow-locked face pulsed."Three days," he ground out, punctuating each defeated memory like hammer blows. "Dragged her to more Depot-clinics. Sawdust med-booths tucked under corroded coolant pipes." He sneered, a harsh expulsion of air echoing Kiri's fading breaths. "Vents choked on decades of grime. Lights so old, they buzzed like dying flies. Waste. Better to burn credits on air-tax than light tubes! Waste!" His voice cracked on the repetition, raw with the futility. He ticked off each failure on brutalized knuckles. "Drug her... Kiro west-cut Hub… then that glitz-trap, Hadron Wave 'sanitization' dump..." Ah-Jin choked, the words like ground glass. "Sanitization? Slag! Couldn't even scan her GLANDS!" The roar erupted, shaking steam from the vents. "FRAUDS! Empty chrome shells beepin' nothin'!" He slammed a fist hard against his own sternum, a dull, punishing thud. "Wasted TIME. Wasted AIR-TAX CRED. Wasted every chit scraped off this cursed deck!" Another blow to his chest. "Drip... drip... drip... her life pourin' out... OUR salvage pile pourin' out... VANISHED! Up THEIR sterile chimneys! GONE!"
He stopped dead. His glinting eyes, cold and scalpel-sharp, nailed Cho across the unstable steam barrier. "Then…" He jabbed his index finger towards the General like a weapon. "You, Iron-Face."
Cho froze mid-scrape, utterly still, like a statue of granite suddenly realizing it might be molten underneath. His gaze, impossibly, refused to lift from the utterly empty bowl in his grip. He looked like a man being sculpted in shame, each chisel stroke delivered silently by a madman.
"I begged you, Cho!" The plea ripped from Ah-Jin's throat, raw as ripped metal. He leaned into the General's space, steam curling like ghosts around his grief. "Crawled on my knees through refinery sludge to find your name on a tachyon imprint. You knew a cutter up Galactic Vector-Fourteen. That pulse-surgeon who worked outta decommissioned med-freaks... had his own spliced scanners, you said! Said... maybe... if he felt like pissing brass rounds down on Beltkin." He stabbed a finger towards Cho's unyielding chin. "You said you'd get us clearance! A seat on a sector tender!"
He paused, breath ragged. Cho didn't move. Didn't flinch. But something unseen cracked below the surface. His shoulders sagged, a millimeter too far. Guilt.
"Yeah," Ah-Jin spat, bitterness flooding his mouth. "Your clearance. Took weeks dancing on razor-nodes while your bosses argued regs! Kiri rotting by the minute!" His hand slashed upwards, towards the distant, untouchable tier-ships. "That pass? Landed smack on my tach-stack..." He paused, the memory a physical blow. The words came out gouged. "...Hours after Corp-Coalition flattened our hab-wall kick-down style. Couldn't even crawl outta the Belt by then."
He swallowed a sound too wet to be a sob. Steam thickened around him like a shroud. "Dragged her... bleeding, screaming... down the Void-Appetite Alley clutch vents. No med-bay. No cutter. Just me... rain, coolant leaks… and her. Giving me Haerin in a pile rust metal. Those little fingers… worming into mine…" His voice shattered completely. Tears carved paths through grease-stained defiance. He slammed a shaking fist down so hard the counter groaned. "SHE STILL BLEEDING OUT, CHO! Skin turned porcelain… frigid. Held my girl looking pale flame... then she slipped. Right beside Haerin's first gasp. Gone. Your clearance docket warmed my screen two minutes later." He whispered it, the quietest sound yet, loudest horror. "Dead."
Silence. Air moved only by the hellish bubble of the nearby wok. Yeji tasted blood – cracked her lip silent. Min-ji's untouched noodles congealed, forgotten. Cho, impossibly, somehow folded in tighter. Rigid. Destroyed.
Fueled by the memory of that final, sickening lag – help so close yet barred – Ah-Jin whirled. Fury found its target again: the idea. The ruling floor. His scorched gaze ignited Yeji first, then Min-ji.
"Every time," he ground out, each word hammered flat. "Every. Single. One of You." His gesture wasn't dismissive now; it was condemning. "Stomp window bugs without thinking. Why? 'Cause filth floats down." He stomped the deck plating. "Here. Your waste. Pipe poison." He swept a hand, gripping tight the soaked air. "Kicked into our streets. Our lungs." His fury enveloped Cho again, subtly different now – not just processing plant-shaped complicity, but agent of that same mechanism denying help. "We scrape the rot you birth. Shield your shiny lungs from collapse."
His voice dropped, crackling with vicious heat as it landed on Min-ji, Yeji. "See your spawn at breath-easy tier, max filter level? Mine plays where the poison sludge-pools sparkle pretty. Where the chrome plumbed the sky wastes drop." He threw the glare toward the upstairs room where Haerin dwelled. Dangerously quiet. "Like I played… Just like her Ma… dead." Knuckles popped as fists began to rhythmically clenching and unclenching - instincts ready to strike, pressing pain away.
"Tomorrow." Barely a whisper, piercing the bubble-hum of the cafe. "When Corp-Sec kicks off the clean-sweep this time? Hunting escapee Yeji..." He braced both palms hard down - an act of final occupation. Knuckles, washed white by pressure, bled since cracking on the counter slice. Raw bone sanity barely holding purchase. "I will be HERE.**" A magnetic pull rooted Ah-Jin immovable.
Yeji locked eyes. "Guard THIS gutter-spawn of Belt," he enjoined with her. On Min-ji: "My trash shine." Circling Cho lighting a pyre of unresolved plea - betrayal aching palpable. "Our bleeding dirt trench." A hand rises to gently tap the grime-armored torso armor hard at the heart. "Home."
The beads rattles as an up-bound transport passes outside – brief seismic shake rattling stacked bowls. Ah-Jin barely budged.
"Congratulations," muttered Ah-Jin dry as tomb-dust. "Starve your faces down for longer." Skill flickering withdrawal motion for their bowls: any evidence remaining growing increasingly unappetizing. "Eat them, or dump down obscuring sewer." Hung fast now on Cho: "But you all... Leave."