A low hum followed us through the service tunnels, the only break in the oppressive silence. Not the thrum of the city above, but the faint buzz of the electro-cuffs binding Ryu’s wrists to the gurney. He walked, a staggering, animal grace, while I steered the battered salvage unit through the grime. Each of his steps felt too heavy, too real. His gaze burned into my back. A constant, prickling heat against my synth-leather jacket. He hadn’t spoken since the meat locker, just followed the gurney, his focus a steel trap on me. Even now, half-sedated from the neural dampener I’d managed to inject, his eyes held that unsettling, intelligent hunger. “How old am I?” His voice, raw and raspy, cut through the quiet. He leaned back against the gurney’s padded restraint, head tilted, a perfect, unlined face emerging from the dim light. My fingers tightened on the steering grip. A landmine. Every question he tossed out was rigged. One wrong twitch, and the whole goddamn operation blew up in my face. “Doesn’t matter much in the Sprawl,” I said, not turning. My voice sounded flat, even to me. “Age is just another number to hack.” He didn't relent. “You remember. Tell me.” A bitter tang filled my mouth. How much could I fabricate without contradicting myself later? His files had been a black hole. Blank slate, courtesy of whatever megacorp had used him as a bioweapon. “Mid-twenties,” I offered, a guess. My own age, give or take. No wrinkles on him, not a scar visible. Could be a fresh-faced corpo intern, could be a ghost from the archives. “Same as me, give or take a cycle.” He nodded slowly, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. My stomach churned. “And… we always speak like this?” My brow furrowed. “Like what?” “So… direct.” He considered the word, tasting it. “No formalities. No honorifics.” “Uh, yeah,” I mumbled, turning to glance at him. My pulse quickened. “You were always more of a straight shooter. Never liked wasting breath on courtesies. My kind of guy.” I spat out the lie, the words tasting like ash. Thorns grew on my tongue, each one a new branch of fabrication. Lies, like synthetic bioweapons, mutate and spread. “What did I do, before… this?” He gestured vaguely at the cuffs, the gurney, the shadowed tunnel. My mind went blank. *You killed people, you hulking bio-weapon. You were probably a wetwork specialist for some black-ops syndicate, leaving nothing but slag and fear.* My throat tightened. “So, uh…” I stammered, scrambling for something plausible, anything. His hand, quick as a viper, reached out, grazing my elbow. A jolt went through me. I jerked back. “You… you designed things! Architect. Top-tier. Yeah.” “Designed what?” *People. You designed ways to break people.* “Buildings. Towering structures. The ones that pierce the clouds above.” My voice was barely a whisper. I wanted to sew my own mouth shut. “That’s how we met?” His eyes, dark and unblinking, fixated on me. They held no malice, only an unnerving intensity. “Yeah. You needed some custom bio-tech for a high-rise, some environmental control. I was the best mech-jockey for the job.” I forced a thin smile, my jaw tight. --- Back in my cramped apartment-lab, the air purifier whirred, struggling against the pervasive reek of antiseptic and ozone. Ryu sat on the edge of the cot, a stark contrast to the sterile environment. Dirt streaked his face, grime caked under his nails from his escape, and a nasty gash bled sluggishly along his forearm where he’d torn through a reinforced door. After his forced shower – a struggle that left my own synth-skin jacket soaked and torn – I set about patching him up. My hands trembled as I dabbed antiseptic gel onto the wound. He didn't flinch. Not a groan, not a hiss. Just that unnerving calm, his breathing steady. Every touch felt like a violation, a tightening of the invisible knot between us. “We should sleep here,” he said, his voice softer than I expected. “Together.” I froze, the applicator hovering over his skin. “What?” “We’re… together, aren’t we?” His gaze pierced me. “Like before. Like the touch I remember.” I scrambled back, knocking over a tray of scalpels with a clatter. They scattered across the grimy floor. *Shit.* I had never considered the implications of my desperate lie. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped pigeon. “You’re still… a patient, Ryu. You’re recovering.” My voice cracked. “I’m not vegetative now. And you are my… mate.” The word was foreign, primal, yet delivered with a strange, quiet conviction. It chilled me to the bone. His eyes, once bleak and empty in the hypersomnic tank, now held a disconcerting depth. The primal rage from the meat locker was gone, replaced by something far more insidious: an insistent, possessive clarity. “Are you… uncomfortable?” he asked, his voice low, almost sad. “Because I’m not as you remember me?” I couldn’t answer. My tongue felt like a lead weight in my mouth. *You were a comatose experiment, Ryu. I remember you as a job.* “I…” “It’s alright.” He reached out, his hand pausing inches from mine. “I won’t force you. I won’t threaten. Not like… whatever I was before.” The bleakness returned to his eyes, a momentary flicker. “So. Sleep here with me.” Doc Ahn had warned me. His neural patterns were volatile. When he slept, there was no telling when he’d wake, or what state he’d be in. Making him fall asleep, making him stable, was the priority. Even if it meant this. I swallowed, pushing down the revulsion. My cot, little more than a thin mattress on a metal frame, was barely wide enough for one. Two would be a sardine can. I lay down, facing the grimy wall, acutely aware of the warmth and bulk of him next to me. The scent of disinfectant, sweat, and something else – something wild and potent – filled the cramped space. “So many questions,” he murmured, turning to face me. I felt his breath on my neck. His gaze hit me like a physical blow. I kept my eyes fixed on a spiderweb strung between a data conduit and the wall. “What’s burning you the most?” I asked, my voice strained. “How did I end up… frozen like that?” “An accident.” I kept my answer vague, already planning the next layer of lies. “We were on a recon mission, out in the Northern Sprawl. Collapse. Structural failure.” “You too?” he asked, a frown deepening the lines between his brows. I nodded. “Minor cuts and bruises. Nothing like you.” My heart hammered. One wrong word, and he’d see through it all. He’d discover the truth: that I’d been illegally salvaging his still-functioning organs when he stirred. That I had intended to strip him for parts. He’d kill me. Swiftly. “And you cared for me?” “Yeah. But the medical team, they did the heavy lifting.” A half-truth. I had been the ‘medical team,’ the only one willing to gamble on a dead man walking for the right price. “Focus on yourself, Ryu. You’ll be back on your feet soon. You had… a family. A brother.” “I don’t remember him.” His voice was soft, laced with a strange sorrow. He reached for my hand. My body stiffened, but I didn’t pull away. His grip was warm, firm. It wasn’t just my hand he held; it felt like he’d tethered himself to my very core. “Only you, Kaelen. Only your face. Your touch. Nothing else lingers. I guess… I love you very much.” *Love.* The word was a foreign body, an invasive synth-tech parasite in my brain. My parents, long-dead and forgotten in the depths of the lower sectors, flashed through my mind. I clamped down on the urge to curse, to lash out. Ryu shifted, pulling the thin, worn blanket up over both of us. The sudden warmth was startling, a strange comfort. It almost lulled me into a false sense of security, the day’s bone-deep exhaustion threatening to drag me under. As I instinctively snuggled deeper into the meager cover, my eyes met his again. “When did we marry?” “Uh… two years ago.” The lie spilled out, unprepared. “Did you cry for me?” His thumb brushed over the back of my hand, a tender gesture that felt utterly alien. “We were newlyweds. And then… I was gone. A husk. That must have been terrible.” “I’m used to it,” I lied, my voice flat. “My work. Patients. Dead eyes staring. You get numb.” “How long did we date?” “Ah, um…” The questions were escalating, spiraling out of control. My mind raced, trying to keep track of the rapidly expanding web of deceit. I’d been single my entire life, navigating the shadows of Neo-Kyoto alone. What did I know about dating? “Not long. We… got married pretty quick. After we met.” “Quick?” He raised an eyebrow, a hint of curiosity in his tone. *Shit. Was that a mistake?* In the Sprawl, convenience marriages, even one-night agreements, weren’t uncommon. But ‘quick’ implied something specific. “One night?” he asked, his lips curving into a slow smile. “What?” My jaw dropped. I gaped at him, blood rushing to my face. My carefully constructed cool was shattering. He chuckled, a low, rumbling sound. “We met, and that same night, you decided I was the one. That we should just… get married.” His eyes sparkled, the earlier bleakness entirely gone. He looked young, almost innocent, in that moment. The predatory edge was softened, replaced by a disarming charm. My breath hitched, a knot of fear tightening in my gut. This was a nightmare. “Guess you were pretty bold back then, Kaelen.” “No! That’s not what happened!” The misunderstanding, the implication, burned like acid. I wanted to scream. But what could I say? How could I untangle this without exposing the entire lie? My silence was damning. Kwon Chae-woo – *Ryu* – tilted his head, resting it against the pillow. His smile lingered, a quiet, unsettling triumph. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, every nerve on edge. The city’s distant hum seemed to mock me. I had salvaged a monster. And now, I was trapped in its new, distorted reality. My own damn fault. He released my hand, turning his back to me. The sudden loss of contact was a cold shock. A minute stretched into two, then five. His breathing deepened, slowing, finally evening out into the steady rhythm of deep sleep. He was out. For now. My body, rigid with tension, slowly began to relax, but my mind raced. The night was far from over. I had to plan. I had to escape. He stirred once, a soft sigh. “My Kaelen,” he mumbled, half-asleep. “My touch.” The words were a cold, invisible chain, binding me tighter than any electro-cuff.

Flesh & Wire