Santi puts the syringe away—he'd brought it with him lest something terrible was to happen. He had expected to use it for himself in the worst case scenario, but he hadn't anticipated he'd be needing it for Howie instead. His eyes lower to the space between him and the sharp-eyed man's black boots on the ground. And then he hears something. A low sneer. He couldn't bring himself to look at Howie, not now, and perhaps not ever again. He could get away with not seeing Tiger Kwon by locking himself in his room, or within the safety The Roundtable territory offers, avoiding him completely. But he cannot get rid of Howie and the things the man blames him for. He isn't sorry. Why should he be? He hadn't done anything wrong. Who's to tell, maybe Howie's worse, and he just doesn't remember yet. But the scornful chortles don't stop. He lifts his head up slowly to see Howie, from the foot up to the torso, and notices rips in his coworker's clothes by the chest part in the process. He squints to focus on them and sees two bullet holes burned into the fabric, black stains creating two coaster-size circles, one in the left and one in the middle, alongside some other smaller blots and spatters. With little light he can't ascertain if there are wounds anywhere or not. His ears start to ring, his heartbeat pounding against his ribcage. His coworker's hand is still over his own neck and his face is still turned to the side; his mouth carved into a derisive smirk. The disdainful look in the newbie's eyes slowly graduates into full-on ridicule, as his low snicker turns into maniacal laughter. Santi's eyebrows meet, his gaze blaring with resentment. Howie doesn't believe him. Why had he ever even considered that his situation is easy to empathize with? "Forget it," he brushes off. "Do what you want."

"You don't have to tell me that," Howie mocks, finally looking at him.

"Just tell Tiger Kwon I said you."

The sharp eyes on the newbie turn cold, like the temperature outside had dropped to zero. 

"You think I'm just being an anyway, right? That all this is a ing joke so it's easier for you to just you blame it on someone else," Santi accuses. "That's why you're throwing your stupid tantrums and lashing out at me. You think I don't know what I'm going through and what I have to do to stay safe? I can't go out because there's a ing psycho hell-bent on trying to kill me. And if I go into the world and left to my devices, I'd ing lose my . And then I'd be the psycho going after people and trying to ing eat them! You think this is a ing joke for me, Howie?! Laugh all you want, but when you're right there hunched over a corpse with the guts exposed to you that you had been gnawing at, then don't you ing dare blame me and say I didn't warn you."

"But you didn't warn me the first time, did you?" Howie stubbornly retorts. Santi grumbles and closes his eyes shut quickly, refusing to acknowledge the bullheadedness his coworker apparently has in his arsenal, before opening them again and directly staring into the other's eyes.

" you and your moral ing high horse, ," says Santi indignantly.

Howie had been listening, and even if he didn't seem like it, hundreds of thoughts had come breaking into his mind. He is laughing because it's insane, but Santi radiates pain and suffering that could last him for an entire millennium. He's hurt too, but is he as hurt as the pale man glaring at him right now? Does it matter? 

"So you're telling me I'm like that," Howie more so declares than inquires.

"I'm telling you, do whatever the you want," Santi dismisses.

"You're not even gonna convince me? And you're offended that I was laughing?"

"I don't owe you . Since you're smart enough to accuse me of deliberately putting you in danger, surely you're smart enough to figure things out by yourself." 

"What the does that have to do with anything? And why are you being such a about it?" Howie exclaims, his tone thick with irritation. "That's all you can ing do, huh? about it?! Well no ing wonder you're miserable!"

Santi's mouth falls open in complete shock. Howie, despite his own anger, knows he had stepped over another boundary with his coworker. Apparently he just keeps messing up when it comes to the singer. Hurt, grief, devastation, and all sorts of other trauma flares up in the other's eyes simultaneously, as if the pale man is witnessing his childhood home get engulfed by a massive flame. Howie instantly feels terrible, and had the urge to make things up, but he doesn't even know where the problem lies currently. The issue isn't a small misunderstanding, too. There's a Mt. Everest of a mountain of information to unpack. He's swift with his remarks about Santi not warning him, but hearing about eating corpses and cannibalism, in the same argument is mental. Two things cannot fit in one scale, not even a spectrum. One of these things shouldn't even exist to begin with!

Instead of arguing, Santi's eyes just turn blank, as if he's resigning himself to these facts. He's compartmentalizing his emotions and focusing solely on what he can do to survive. Only then did Howie realize it really is that bad.

"We need to tell the police about Tiger Kwon, at least," Howie pleads quietly, his feelings switching from a blazing forest fire to a soft melting ice cream on a midsummer day.

"What are you gonna tell them, that the leader of Eastern Sun Group bullied you? And under what evidence? Hearsay?"

Right. Howie winces. He inhales and exhales sharply through his nose. The problems, outrageous as they may seem individually, are interconnected. He can't admit to one thing and disprove the next. "So you want me to just stay cooped up inside like you..." his voice trails off as he realizes what he's saying as he says them. He just can't seem to stop digging through and poking at Santi's issues, trying to get an insight from him, but deep down he knows why he does it. He wants to know because he needs the tools to help him solve his own problems. It's just that—and he admits Santi is reasonable for saying this—the pale man doesn't owe him anything, and there is nothing he can do about it. He constantly makes it worse for him too as he unwittingly keeps pushing the wrong buttons.

"What do you want me to do, then?" Howie asks carefully.

"Shut up and trust me."

Howie, left with no other options, had to surrender. "Okay."

"Right now, we have to go somewhere," Santi instructs. "I just have to make a call."

Santi whips out his phone from his back pocket and dials a number. Howie notices then that the gaping wound in his coworker's forearm is gone. The pale man's skin is completely intact once more, as if he hadn't just taken a chunk out of it. Howie watches as Santi puts the device to his ear and waits for the call to connect, his eyes absently falling to the three paper bags of clothes laying by the giant industrial waste bins. The pale singer walks to it and takes a peek inside, discovering articles of clothes—shirts, pants, socks, underwear—and a smartphone. This is what Howie had gotten from their trip to the mall earlier, and after being kidnapped and assaulted the way that his coworker had, the pale singer understands right away what this means for himself. Tiger Kwon wants Howie to come back so he can send Santi the message. His face falls, knowing that the goon knows more than he's supposed to now, and he's left feeling like a lab mouse caught in a maze with its walls gradually closing in, running in smaller and smaller circles. Not only is he a target to Kwon, now his coworker is involved in this twisted game of run and chase with him.

The trap within the message is that Tiger Kwon wants Santi to know that he knows about what he is. So could that be, that Tiger Kwon also knows what Howie is? If there's anyone who ought to ask questions around here, it is supposed to be Santi, but everyone seems to expect him to know more than he does. Questions like, how did Tiger Kwon know about Howie, when Santi himself didn't even know that about the newbie? Could this all be somehow related to both of their pasts? Then that must mean that Santi had known Howie from before. Had the gangster always known? His mind fails to provide answers. He doesn't even know if it has them in the first place. Just by thinking of the possibility that the accusations might be right, and that Santi might really know more than what meets the eye, but that he just can't remember, terrifies him to no end.

Howie notices the bags his coworker had been looking at. "I didn't even realize they're still there."

"These are yours?" Santi feigns curiosity.

"Yeah, I bought them earlier," says Howie and proceeds to pick the bags up. "Isn't it weird that he just lets me keep these instead of just taking them or leaving them where I'd dropped them? I mean, what is he trying to say, that he's evil enough to beat someone to a pulp but still not too evil to ing rob them and steal their ? That's a missed opportunity and frankly a bit stupid, no? Or is he getting me off his tracks somehow?"

"He's saying, go on with your life and continue to live in it while I watch close by," Santi responds. "He wants you to bring him information by simply letting you do things and observing your every move."

Howie's face darkens with the realization. Before he can come up with anything to say, the call is picked up from the other side and Santi speaks into his phone.

"Hello?"

Santi waits for the reply.

"Sorry to bother you at this hour, Director, but I need your help right now."

Another pause.

"My friend. He's injured."

Howie is perplexed upon hearing this. He inspects himself to check for injuries, which he hadn't thought of doing beforehand because he no longer feels sore or in pain at all. He does see the stains on his shirt and the two small holes in them, but otherwise he's completely fine.

"He's..." Santi hesitates before his voice falls into a whisper, but speaks loud enough for the newbie to hear him say, "...like me, sir."

Howie observes as Santi anxiously waits for the answer from the other end of the line. When he sees the pale singer exhale with relief and his posture relax, he knows the conversation has ended favorably. "Thank you, Director. We're still at the bar. We'll wait for you here."

After the call ends, Santi turns to Howie and tells him, "For now, let's get those inside while we wait."

"Who's the Director?"

"You'll meet him soon, don't worry," his pale coworker replies.

"I don't like it when you don't just give a straightforward answer, Santi," he confesses. Howie just doesn't see the point in this. There's nothing for him to use all these information for against the pale man, if that's what he's worried about. "Why do you keep beating around the bush?"

"Because I don't like talking about these things," Santi's face remains blank and unreadable. "Can you get off my back about it?"

"I just want to help," Howie says honestly. "I want to help myself, and if I can I want to help you too. Is that so wrong?"

Santi sighs. "I get it, Howie. Believe me," the look on his eyes warms up for a second. "But I'm just not the right person to ask about these things. Yes, this is happening to me. But for what reason, I have no ing clue. Trying to think about it so hard to figure out answers that may or may not be in my brain just leaves me frustrated afterwards, because I just..."

Howie looks directly into Santi's eyes. In the blankness that clouds his features, the newbie could see deep agony, twinkling like stars in a twisted sense. The only way he could bring the answers to light is if he's willing to set himself on fire.

"...I just end up reminding myself of the massive emptiness in my soul over and over and over again."

Howie lowers his gaze out of respect. "...I'm sorry, Santi," he says after a while.

"Me too," whispers the pale man.

He picks up the call as soon as the caller ID pops up. He's in his car on his way to the office when Santi rings him up out of nowhere. "Hello?" says the person on the other line.

"Yes, Santi?" he says after putting the phone on speaker.

"Sorry to bother you at this hour, Director. But I need your help right now." 

His eyebrows furrow as he listens to the caller intently. "Help with what?"

"My friend. He's injured."

"Your friend?" he asks. Since when had Santi made friends with anyone? Is the friend a bar employee as well?

"He's...like me, sir." Santi adds, interrupting his thoughts.

The Director's eyes widen in alarm and disbelief. "Alright. I'll pick you up. Where are you?"

He listens as the caller replies. Afterwards he says, "Okay. I'll be there in fifteen minutes." Santi thanks him, and he ends the call. Right after, he immediately phones up another number. He takes the nearest u-turn and heads straight to The Roundtable bar. Within a few seconds, the call connects.

"Pops," he says, greeting the person on the other line. "I'm going to pick up Santi right now. Something urgent happened."

"What?"

"He says his friend is injured...and that he's like him," he relays as the unsettling feeling the news has brought him sends an eerie sense of foreboding, signaling a storm brewing in the horizon. Devastation will soon hit, and he wonders how prepared they are for this. There's a good three seconds of silence that fills up the emptiness of his Cadillac. The man on the other line doesn't say a word, doesn't even make a single sound. He knows the other is feeling as tense as he has after hearing about Santi.

"Okay. Go to them first. We'll wait for you here."

"Okay. I'll catch up with you later," he bids before hanging up.

The Director arrives after waiting for nearly t