"My game has no rules," he tells her. It's a threat. Maybe a warning. Maybe an admission. He's not sure. But with the right amount of menace, it sounds meaningful.

(My mat has no rules.)

"It's not a game, then."

She looks tired. He doesn't know if it's him or the three jobs she's working or being poverty stricken or being in love with an like Kim Tan. He'd like to believe it's him.

"If there were no rules, there'd be no game. The game is the rules. If every game didn't have different rules then there'd be no difference between them. You would keep playing and nobody would ever win and nobody would ever lose." The idiot part is unspoken, but it makes the corners of his mouth twist up.

"Our new money sure is smart," he says, less because he understands and more because she fires up at his compliments more than she does at his insults. It would be fascinating, if he were the kind to be fascinated by novelty.

Unexpectedly, she tosses her head, instead, "wouldn't expect you to understand. 99th place is the 99th place for a reason."

-

She throws a plate at him, once. He remembers it like inertia creeping, standing in the pull of some sort of gravity in her coffee shop, while it leaves her hand and makes for his head and the sound of breaking is softer than her shocked gasp.

That she immediately runs over, hands over , eyes wide, kind of ruins the effect. He tells her as much.

“I didn’t mean to,” she says, “god, I’m—”

“—sorry?” he asks, agreeably. It hurts like , but he’s used to hurting like , that’s not the important part here. Not even close to the most interesting. He can feel the wetness against his temple. Doesn't make a move to wipe it off, battle scars are badges of honor. You learn something while making maps out of bruises on your body. They're going to take you somewhere eventually, one step closer to victory.

“Yes.” She’s avoiding his gaze, but he’s catalogued the angle of her hands, the depth of the crease between her eyebrows, the shuffling of her feet, and if he was familiar with the kind of psychobabble bull that his therapists spout, he could have probably added those up to make something.

“Sorry won’t prevent this scarring,” he says, reasonably enough, if he does say so himself, “try again.”

She looks worried, it’s kind of amusing. If this is concern for his well-being, it’s more than amusing, it’s downright hysterical. She bends down, at his feet, and for a moment his world dissolves into white noise, before she picks up the first piece of glass, “I really am sorry.”

He wants to stay longer, but he’s late for duty at the hotel and for some reason, he’s not in the mood for confrontation. It’s a phase, it’ll pass. Preferably in the middle of washing the dishes. Then he can break some of his own.

-

(He pays for the broken plate, leaves a napkin with an ominous you owe me scrawled across it. But if she knows him at all, she’ll know it’s a formality, for the sake of appearances. She doesn’t need to owe him for him to collect.

He pays for the plate anyway. He can.)

-