• • •
Aiden opened the front door, frozen still by the blast of air conditioning. His stepmother stood at the doorway with crossed arms. Allowing his feet to thaw in the outside air, he dragged his backpack behind him and closed the door to the freezing castle.
“I can take care of everything,” his stepmother said the second he stepped in. “You don’t need to do anything.”
“Yeah, Ma can do it,” He Bao agreed. His stepbrother also crossed his arms but remained sitting on the couch. “But don’t cry. That’d be embarrassing.”
Zhu Zhu sat beside her brother, playing with her iPad and never looked up.
“The dates will be important. Already we have been cursed with bad luck with his death. Now is more imperative than ever that we choose a good luck month. Of course, the funeral would not be taking place here, but in Hong Kong. I do not want to bother with moving his remains back here which I’m sure you’ll agree with, but we mustn’t appear too Chinese, so western style it’ll be.” Aiden still stood at the doorway in his shoes. His stepmother walked with her slippers squeaking against the tiled ground, around and around. His fingers burned from holding the backpack up from the ground. He dropped it to the ground.
“Why are you still standing here? We have work to do. Take off your shoes before you come in—don’t let grief get in the way of basic manners for goodness sakes.” She pulled him onto the wooden floor before he kicked his last shoe off.
She spent days counting the guests, mumbled the importance of which guest affected the family businesses, and invited strangers who called with screaming voices of desperation to be included in the funeral.
I should say something.
He washed the dishes, and she increased the guest list.
Ge would probably prefer a Chinese traditional funeral.
He vacuumed the house, she spent more on the decorations, and his stepsiblings lived with their usual attitudes.
What about the girl who left the lime green dress? I hope she’s at the funeral. Maybe I can finally know who Celia is.
Sorrow washed over him. It carried him far away from his stepmother and his stepsiblings, leaving him stranded in his own thoughts of hopelessness. His stepmother made all the decisions.
The funeral was to take place in Hong Kong under western traditions with a guest list of strangers.
• • •
Aiden supposed the funeral was large, overdramatic, and filled with guests important to Infinite, but people passed around him in blurs. Entering the grand hall reserved only for the richest guests, opened his eyes to a world that shrunk around him. The pews minimized, the floor beneath his feet skewed together, and the walls boxed him in. He smelled nothing, though flowers littered the floor, on stands, and hung from the ceiling. Words jumbled together in Chinese of various dialects alongside English.
Only the casket loomed larger.
He walked up to the closed casket, but with each tinier step, the casket increased in size. It was a dark brown casket, glazed like the laminated papers the teachers passed out, supposedly forever preserving what was inside. Except there was nothing to preserve. The skin would peel back, pulling away from the bones, and rot into nothing until all that was left were undistinguishable bones. Was the wood of the casket even real? Did the materials even matter? His eyes strained, unable to stop counting the lines he saw crisscrossing. They were tree rings, so the wood had to be real. But why did he care? He reached and, eye twitching, placed his hand against the top of the closed casket.
Breaths echoing in his ears, Aiden closed his eyes.Ge. I can’t see you. Please let me find you.
Face burned black beyond any hope of recognition. Legs mangled from the impact of the car’s explosion. A neck shriveled away underneath the heat of flames with an indent caused by either the fire eating into the flesh or a sharp object slashing into his throat.
The body left little clues to tell who did the deed. Wang Xing, the only other eyewitness, died just as horrendously as his brother. Two large holes gaped on the side of Wang Xing’s head where his ears should’ve been. The police detected no fingerprints because of how long and powerfully the bodies burned. They died in the construction land abandoned by the wealthy elite, surrounded amongst half-built buildings and forgotten plans.
But the worst part of his brother’s death was wondering about the pain and how long it took for his brother to finally die.
Bile rose up in his throat. Aiden gagged, swallowing the bitter gunk down. Knees shaking, body shivering from a sudden cold draft, he stumbled to the side and stood by the casket, while the guests paid their respect.
“Xiao Hui, I am sorry about what happened to him.”
Aiden wrenched his eyes open to an unfamiliar face.
“I want to let you know that we are all here today to celebrate him. We won’t forget what he has done for Infinite.”
“Thank you…”
The man’s hand tightened around Aiden’s. “Once you take his place, I will do whatever it takes to help you. Do not forget me.”
His shoulders stiffened.How many more of these people will approach me?
