Chapter 4: Can't Be Too Careful, Right?

I spread out the waterproof tarp on my apartment floor. I kneel down, making a few needles and setting them to the side before retracting my shell and changing the location of my core, this time going with the back of my left hand. It's easier to manipulate things if I can produce them directly by my fingers. I create the small, fleshy appendage that I last used twenty-something years ago. It's a bit disgusting to see for the first time, like an exploded hot dog in the microwave wrapped in slimy skin. I wrap it in loose nerve fibers, looking for a connection, and do find a small nerve bundle to tap into towards the end. Finally, I make a few unattached skeletal muscles and line them along the tarp, connected via an artery to my shell. If I were a depraved serial killer, this would be my magnum opus.

I just need emotions, now... "Hey, Mirka?"

I hear a soft grunt the comes from the bedroom, followed by Mirka turning the corner. She closes her eyes the second she sees the scene. "Whyyyy?" she bemoans, as she makes her way to the couch.

"Trying to connect facial expressions to my internal emotions. Some guy at my job gave me the idea."

"And why do you need me?"

"I need you to make me feel emotions. Start with making me happy. That's the easiest one, I think."

Her eyes crinkle as she smiles, trying not to look at the gory scene. "I think you're a very unique and interesting person, and I enjoy spending time with you."

There it is.

I take one of the metal needles, and stab my precursor appendage with it. There's pain, technically, but its similar to how my shell experiences it. Nothing noteworthy.

"Hey, I have my hands full here, can you do me a big favor and cut a piece of me open?"

"You're not seriously asking me to dissect you," Mirka says, sitting on the couch, her head turned away from the exposed flesh.

"It's just a cut. I have so many things attached to my core right now that I can't really pull out any of the various knives I keep in my void. Poor planning on my end. Come on, please?" In retrospect, I should have done this with my best friend...

She sighs, but does actually get up and meander to the kitchen, coming over to me with a steak knife. "Tell me what to do before I puke."

"Right. See the kind of mushy thing? I need you to cut down into it, then I'm going to move my nerves into it and pin them into place."

She's halfway to gagging, it seems. "Is this how all your shell modifications happen?"

"Nope, just the interesting ones."

Mirka hesitantly slices into the appendage, and I stop her about halfway in.

"Good. Okay..." I loosen the spiderweb of nerves attached to the appendage, and loosely stick about half them into the appendage's new hole before pinning them into place. "So there's that..." I pin the other half of the nerves into the muscle I have laying on the tarp. "Okay. Make me happy again."

"Sure. Your shell is very beautiful, and your core is too." She winks at me to cap off the sentence.

The muscle rapidly convulses to the point it loosens the pin, and it soon detaches from the nerves entirely. The connection definitely worked. More importantly, I get another unfamiliar emotion in my core, somewhere between envy and happiness, maybe? It's strangely warm for an emotion, but still very pleasant. "I'll be damned. Kapil was right... What did you mean by my core was beautiful?"

"It means its pretty, kind of like tumbled onyx, but flowing and alive. It's kind of hypnotic to watch the little indents swimming around... when it isn't surrounded by all the gore, anyway."

Yep. That's the new emotion. Not pride, closer to the 'cared for' emotion but more forceful. It's funny, how a lack of hormones makes complex feelings a mystery until they're felt strongly enough in specific contexts.

"Good news, this worked. Now I just need to hook everything up. Lucky for you, that means I'll be in my core for a while." I withdraw my shell into my body, and start slowly making room for the extra appendage, adding human nerves to connect to the appendage's nerve bundle, and slowly hooking that up to my facial muscles. This is a really ugly looking solution, like a bunch of different wires in a server rack tangled together, but I can clean it up later if it works.

After around an hour, I pop my shell out. "Hey."

Mirka fumbles her phone, nearly dropping it, but managing to get a firm grasp on it. "Jesus, you startled me. How'd it go?"

"Let's find out. I need to experience a wide array of emotions. Start with happy again."

"You bet. I think its incredible how talented you are with altering your shell, and the hard work is stunning."

Same new emotion, definitely happy-adjacent though, since I feel my face reflexively contort.

Mirka starts laughing, which makes me frown even further, and in turn she laughs harder. I wait for her to calm down, but she's fully holding her stomach from laughing so hard, taking long gasping breaths before going right back to cackling. I purposefully return my face to a neutral state as she composes herself, wiping tears from her eyes with her sleeve. "Oh my god. That was so perfect. Wait, let me try this. You're a horrifying creepy monster."

I faintly smile at that, to which she starts laughing hysterically again. I definitely inverted the connections. I take in my shell again, and quickly make the nerve adjustments over the course of a few minutes, before releasing it. At least Mirka has stopped laughing, though her face is glowing hot and her eyes are watery. "God, that was funny. I compliment you, and you immediately looked depressed. Then when I laughed, I swear you were about to start crying. Okay. I'm calm." She takes a few breaths, restraining another burst of laughter.

"Great, let's try this again. Start with sad."

A nod from Mirka, looking away from my eyes. "You're a disturbing abomination that I hate being around."

No reaction, but that was expected. Now that I know she's doing it to help, I'm not affected by it. "Being sad probably works."

She comes over closer and hugs my shell. "Sorry for saying that. You know I didn't mean it, right?"

"Yeah, I know. Thanks for doing it." I can definitely skip happy. Her hug already did it. Then again, experimentation is proven by reproducibility... I force a neutral expression. "Happy next?"

She thinks for a moment. "You're beautiful. All of you, mind and bodies."

I make a genuine smile. Not forced, just an external expression of internal emotion. I wait a little bit, basking in the compliment. "We can test the other ones later. I think I'm good right now."

Mirka keeps the smile up, but its fading. "It's my last day here, remember?"

Immediately, I frown and furrow my brow. Looks like sadness works after all. "Oh."

"I can still finish the experiment, if you'd like me to come over again."

"If you don't mind. It would mean a lot to me for you to be there. For research purposes only, of course."

Mirka is starting to turn a bit red in the face. "Research?"

"Yeah. You're the one who has the biggest effect on my emotional state, so you're ideal for experimentation."

Now she's very red. "You, uhh... Yeah. Your facial muscle connections are working well. You don't realize it, but you're saying a lot with your face right now. Like, you scrunch your mouth when you lie, and you're turning pretty red..."

Oh, no wonder she's embarrassed. "Damn it, I'm sorry. I want you here because I want to spend more time with you. I'm fairly certain you also see me as a friend. Unless I misjudged, of course."

"No, you didn't misjudge at all. We're definitely friends. Yeah, good friends. I'm going to go to sleep now. Super tired. Good night!" She scurries off to the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

I check the time, and it's barely nine PM. I hope she's not nauseous from seeing all the flesh lying around. Or worse, just creeped out by my new untested expressions. I hesitantly enter my bathroom. I don't use it for its intended purpose much, but I need the mirror.

I think of Mirka leaving. It's a pretty severe frown, eyebrows almost pressing together near the middle, and a lot of wrinkles around my mouth. Maybe a bit exaggerated? I make a mental note to lower the number of nerves that lead into the muscles of my face. I think of paperwork. It's less severe, more mildly annoyed than sad. I think of hiding a secret, and she was right, my mouth does scrunch. That wasn't intentional, maybe I misplaced something. I think of Mikra staying here for a few more days. So that's what my smile looks like. It could use a little work: it's not quite wide enough, and the eyebrows are pretty static, but overall its pretty solid. Might not change it, just for the sake of uniqueness. Laughter is going to be harder, so I'll save it for a different time.

I put my shell away, and start working on it. A few less nerves here, fix the scrunching... wait, I may have put in too many blood vessels. I take my shell out again, and check the mirror a final time for the night.

I try to feel embarrassed by speaking into the mirror. What's embarrassing to say? "Mirka, I'd like for you to stay here with me for longer."

Yep, way too many blood vessels. My face is turning very bright red when my heart rate increases. Though that leads to the question of why my heart rate is increasing when I picture Mirka and I staying together, though. I don't have that issue with Mark or Kapil.

I know it isn't... No, that makes no sense. Maybe hormonal? I once again pull my shell back into my core.

My mind still feels the same way, though, so I shift back. How does that make any kind of sense? Am I subconsciously faking it? I'm a damned magical beast that isn't even remotely human, from a biological standpoint.

I take my journal and pen, and start writing.

#14: I feel faintly positive when I produce medication for others, not so much when handing them some food.

#15: My emotions are roughly analogous to a human's, though dulled and fleeting.

#16: I can and do form friendships with others, and enjoy doing so.

#17: I'm confident that I can feel romantically attraction, though its murky. It is possible that its just a unique form of embarrassment or friendship.

My face is flushed even when writing down the most basic information about myself. This is going to be an issue. A serious issue.

I text Mark. He might be able to help.

-

Mark opens the door for me, just past ten. We share a brief side hug, as he offers to make a frozen pizza. Why be rude and decline? It's biological material, easy enough to decompose.

His house is small, but cozy. Lots of nature themed decorations, but no living plants. Judging by the slight layer of dust on a nearby fake succulent, I can piece together why. I sit on a comfortable looking couch, nervous on how he's going to take the news.

He sits down across from me on a plush chair, running his hand down his shaved head. "So, what's the emergency? Can sorcerers get brain-razed?"

"What? Wait, where did we land on the whole magical beast thing?"

"What magical beast thing?"

With a sigh, I start explaining myself. He looks more and more concerned as I go on, and then he reaches for his phone as I conclude. "I'm going to call a psych ward. You're not in your right state of mind, Lena."

In response, I simply switch my shell out for the raven, landing on the arm of the couch. Once he stops looking too shocked, I change back, and sit on the arm of his couch.

"So? Convinced?" I ask, making sure my facial muscles are reacting appropriately. A half-smile with lightly raised eyebrows and no nose movement. Perfect.

He puts the phone down, his hand imprecise, more letting it slide from his grip it onto the coffee table between us than a calculated action. "Holy shit... this entire time, you've been a magical beast. I'm friends with a magical beast. I need a minute to... I just need a minute."

"Take your time. I can produce water, if you're thirsty."

He shakes his head, which stays sandwiched between his hands, his eyes wide as he takes a moment to think. "Who else knows?"

"You are... the third person I've told recently, fifth ever."

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"I'm honored, I guess? I have no idea what to say right now." He rubs his palms against his eyes before dropping his hands to the couch.

"You didn't call MBR, and that's all I needed you to do. Other than the emergency I have right now."

He looks over at me. I can see in his expression the slow acceptance that the monster in front of has also been his coworker of five years, and he's trying to reconcile those two aspects. I assume it's going to become very familiar soon enough. "So what's the emergency? Are you being hunted?"

"Worse. If I was being hunted, I would probably just kill the person hunting me. No, I think I'm the hunter in this situation."

He goes a bit pale, though I don't know from which half of what I said. Potentially, it's from realizing half the 'jokes' I said at work about wanting to kill people weren't really jokes.

"I'm speaking metaphorically. So, the black orb you saw is my real body. This human one is just a shell I made that I'm controlling. Make sense?"

"No, but I understand what you're saying."

Such a smartass. "Close enough. Thing is, I don't even know what I am, which is why I'm in an increasingly precarious position here."

He finally starts to loosen up. "You're doing that thing where you talk in circles around what you actually mean."

"In short, one of the people I told my nature too was watching me integrate neurons through my... never mind, this is still off topic. The upshot is I finally made my facial expressions automatic."

Mark actually smiles at hearing that, though its frail. "So that's why you'd go full days acting happy and telling jokes with a completely neutral expression."

"Yeah. Anyway, I hooked up the last of the motor neurons, but I accidentally made my expressions a bit exaggerated, so I pursed my lips when I lied. She's a magic cop, I was too until I had my shell killed and it would have been too complicated for me to lie about."

"You're really good at not getting to the point." Mark checks his phone for the time left on the pizza.

"God damn it. Fine. I think there's mutual attraction between us." My heart starts to increase speed again. I need to give it a manual override in the same way as lungs: they breathe reflexively, but you can still control them manually.

He looks at me for a long moment. "You're that little shadowy ball, right?"

"I know it sounds like I'm reading into it too much. I was testing my facial muscles, and asked her to make me happy so I could make sure they were working. Instead of a generic compliment, she told me she thought both my shell and my core were beautiful, and when I asked further she said it was like living onyx, and it was almost hypnotic to watch, and that it was pretty... now that I'm saying this out loud, I probably am reading too much into it. She was just making me happy when I asked her to."

He blankly looks at me.

"She also turned bright red when I said I only wanted her over for research and testing purposes, but I accidentally added a tell for when I was lying, so she knew there was more than that. Then she said she was going to bed at like nine, and-"

"How is this an emergency?" he asks, eyes narrowing.

"Because I... No, look, it's important because... It just is."

"This isn't an emergency. Congrats, you have a crush. You'll live. I cancelled my plans for this, you know."

"It's not... wait, it is, isn't it? I'm doing that teenager thing. I was never a teenager, so I guess I didn't recognize it."

He pulls his arms inward, looking forlornly at his phone vibrating. "Just talk to her like a normal person if you're so worked up about it. Unless you're planning to lay eggs in her or something, in which case... don't."

"Jesus, Mark, at least not on the first date."

-

I set aside a third epinephrine injector. "I'm starting to think I missed my calling as a pharmacist."

"Maybe a drug dealer," Kapil says, adding a few different chopped vegetables into a pot. He always has actual soup at the soup kitchen. "Pharmacists probably can't just steal copyrighted injection methods."

"You can copyright a needle? That's ridiculous." Another bottle of insulin starts to congeal in my void. I think I'm getting faster with practice.

"How else would they make money?" It's like he's speaking from experience.

I let the question hang in the air, and watch the steam from the soup slowly rise from the pot. It bursts out in a great cloud as Kapil begins to stir with an old wooden spoon.

"Kapil, can I ask you a question?"

"If its something about drug dealing, no." He takes a small taste of the soup, setting the spoon aside and letting it boil.

"Hardly."

He turns, taking a short look at my face. "Fine, then. One from me first, are you faking your expressions?"

"I took your suggestion about using an intermediary, and it panned out, only two tenths of a second of latency. Let me know if any expressions seem strange, I'm still playing with the nerves for some of them. I can't seem to keep my confused face from looking like I just lived through a war." I demonstrate it for him, to which he restrains a grin with some effort.

"Only raise one brow, close your eyes a hair, and pull your cheeks up a bit more."

I do it as instructed, to which he affirms with a thumbs up.

"And what was your question, Lena?"

It's embarrassing to ask, but he's my only friend who I know was in some kind of relationship. "Well... I have a friend. She has an attractive mind, and a beautiful body. Not in the 'I want to steal it' way, but in the 'I want to spend time with it' way."

"I'm probably the worst person to ask, but I'll try. Does she know about you not being human?"

"First one I told in around fifteen years."

He turns back to the soup to stir it again. "Good, it would be very dishonest to hide that. Are you okay with her not being attracted to your actual body?"

"That's just it. She said it was beautiful, and it felt genuine. Like she was thinking about it."

"I can acknowledge something's beauty without wanting a relationship with it. Like how this soup is turning out." He offers a spoonful to me, which I shake my head to.

"Maybe I misread it, then. She did compare me to a rock, which I doubt she has any interest in." Not to mention the obvious logistical problems involved.

"Or, maybe you didn't. You'll have to ask her."

My face scrunches inward towards my nose. "She was staying at my apartment for a week and a couple days, but she's back to her own now. I don't want to scare her away if I'm misreading this. She's a magic crimes cop, too."

"There's something very reassuring about how the tiny inhuman orb has the same problems as everyone else."

I set down the last cartridge of insulin for the day. "About time to open the doors, right?"

"About."

"Gotcha. I'll be up front."

"That'll be the first time."

I playfully flip him off as I feel my cell buzz. A text from an unknown number.

SCAM LIKELY: 1h 3k 1li 60 ?

A goofy smile grows across my face, entirely genuinely. He hasn't messaged me in over half a year. That means a visit to him, and I'm admittedly happy to hear from first real friend.

-

Exactly five people know of my true nature. Three of them were all from the last month. The other two were present for a significant portion of my life, one from a few weeks after I gained consciousness, another around five years after.

I am going to see the latter.

I was fifteen or so when I met Shirai, and largely ingratiated into human society by then. I had started getting more comfortable with my decomposition and shell creation, but I was severely lacking in knowledge on anatomy. I knew what all the parts of a human were, but not what they did. To make matters worse, I was getting progressively more annoyed with human limitations, and never found a shell I truly felt was my own. The closest was a copy of the first person I met, but that came with a lot of baggage.

I needed to find someone who was proficient in anatomy and medicine, who wouldn't call MBR, and I had something to offer to. My options were limited, and only one had a very low risk for me.

I take the form of the man I killed, Nikolas. The man I'm seeing, Shirai, has no particular gang affiliation, but everyone in the local underworld knows him. I should be safe to see him in a body like this, in case any local scum are hanging around. I punch a nearby address into my GPS, taking me to a dog pound downtown. The person I killed being roughly the same height as my Lena shell makes walking less frustrating. With care, I step down a half flight of stairs that turn off from an alleyway next to the pet store, and stomp on a storm door they lead to.

The man who opens it is a light in the dark; dry beige skin and black hair tousled from an aversion to self-care, everything below the neck a blue surgical outfit and white wrist-length rubber glovers. A dozen unknowable gray smudges mar his scrubs. He stands aside, allowing me to fully enter, the bright white lights of the basement beneath reflecting off his pristine glasses.

In movies, these underground doctors are usually med school flunkies, delicensed doctors, or veterinarians. This guy is none of those. As far as I can tell, the closest thing he's done to actual medicine aboveground is washing his hands after using the bathroom. That doesn't make him any less skilled, despite appearances.

"What's up?" The not-a-doctor asks. The walls of the basement here are covered in anatomical posters, and terrifyingly, have detailed reference notes on stuck to the posters with thumb tacks. My eyes linger on one poster with a detailed diagram of the human brain, a large section of it crossed out with the phrase "do not touch!!!" written above it and underlined twice.

"Hey. Got a thing with my leg." I pat my thigh, not making eye contact.

"Wow. A thing. Luckily for you, I'm an expert on things. What's your name?"

"Nikolas."

"Okie dokie, Nikolas of Nemea. Hop up on the table." He taps an autopsy table, smiling brightly in contrast with the faintly rusted edges.

With a light breath of exertion, I climb on top of it.

He patiently smiles as he speaks. "Sooo, what is it, got shot? Lose a fight with a coffee table? Necrotizing spider bite?"

"Worse. I'm here because you texted me, Not-A-Doctor Shirai."

He examines me quizzically, not breaking his friendly smile while tilting his head. "Pretty sure I don't text patients. That would be woefully unprofessional, even on a burner."

I take out my phone, and show him the text I was sent. He pushes up his glasses slightly, his smile stretching out further. "I'll be damned! You've gotten really good at blending in. I'm happy for you, Trev."

"Thanks. I'm not doing all this for sixty, though. I can google how much everything is worth."

He rests his elbows on the autopsy table, glasses slowly drifting back down his slightly sweaty nose. "Come ooooon, I have expenses too. It'll just take you a second. I helped you, you help me?"

"I've paid that back, what, maybe tenfold by now?"

He hops onto the autopsy table next to me, head turned to face me, rubbing his hands together. "I'm just messing with ya. Let's see... I'm getting three-hundo. What are you thinking?"

"Half."

He looks ahead, eyes focused on a poster of the nervous system with 'cerebellum? I hardly know 'em!' written in red ink near the brain. "I'm really sorry. To be honest, I think I can cap at one-twenty if I want to keep the lights on. I could raise kidney prices by five and get away with it, if you want."

"One twenty is fine."

Shirai gives me a pat on the shoulder. "Thanks for that. Hang on, lemme get the material..." He hops off the table, disappearing around a corner.

After a few minutes, he wheels over another autopsy table stacked with a trio of dead dogs and a human corpse. The song he's humming to himself is familiar, one I've heard him hum a thousand times.

"Mind using a human corpse?" he asks, a routine question. "These lazy mafia guys expect me to hold bodies until they tell me to get rid of them, and I'm like 'I have three fridges, one for organs and blood, and one of them has most of my girlfriend in it! It's not like I have a crematorium down here!'"

"No problem. How is the girlfriend, anyway?"

He shrugs. "About the same. You know how it... hang on." He takes a scalpel from his lab coat with a grimace, and after working himself up a bit, slashes the neck of a German Shepherd in the stack of corpses he wheeled in.

"Sorry. Pretty sure it moved. Can't be too careful, right?"

"You can't be."

He takes one last look at the dog. "Anyway, girlfriend's about the same. Oh, her birthday is coming up, but I have no idea what to get her. I can't just give her a jar of pectin like I did last year. You're not human, what would you do?"

"I'm not a lichen, how would I know?"

"She's not a lichen either, she's her own independent algae. She's sensitive about being called a lichen." He scratches his nose, looking off down the hallway.

Right. I knew that. "Sorry. Maybe I can help get some kind of nutrients..?" He's never asked me for help on getting her a present before. It must be dire to need my advice.

He pats me on the shoulder. "No offense, but her propagating is our business. We're not looking for a third. Okay, let's get going. Remember, no human antibodies."

I retract my shell, and start breaking down the dead dogs and the human corpse. Most of my skill with biologic systems comes from Shirai's surgery. I lived down in this basement for a few years at one point, Shirai letting me observe his work and giving me access to nearly two dozen corpses. Their injuries and the resulting complications taught me pretty much everything I needed to know. In turn, I produced skin for grafts, occasionally internal organs, and a lot of blood for his surgery. If I didn't have that foundational knowledge, I wouldn't be able to alter my shells nearly as much as I can now.

Once I finish breaking down the bodies, I start creating the organs. It's a damn shame I can't do this at a hospital. Once, I got in contact with a hospital director about it over email, explaining that I was a magical beast who could create blood, organs, tissues, anything needed. He believed me, too, and said I wasn't even the first magical beast to offer services. The problem was that the government and public both don't really support the practice. Even using blood I donate could land someone in prison for medical malpractice.

One heart, three kidneys, one liver, all attached to a simple lung and circulatory system with some brain tissues to keep them oxygenated. It looks like some morbid flower, the center pulsating and breathing, the petals lying in wait to be pulled.

Shirai never left my range of awareness across the hour and a half the entire process took, from decomposing the bodies to creating the new organs, other than to quickly move the organs to the fridge. When I'm finished, I extrude my shell, and I'm Lena once again.

"How'd we do?" I ask, stretching my shell's arms. They can feel a bit stiff if I leave them in my void for too long.

"You did great, absolutely flawless. Was that synthetic scaffolding I saw?"

"Yep. It'll help keep the central organ bundle thing from falling apart. Should extend the lifespan by a while. I think it's going to finally break the fifty hour mark."

He vigorously nods. "That's so smart. You've gotten so good at this, its honestly amazing. Speaking of amazing, are you still going by Trevor?"

"Lena, now. Lena Sendurmir."

"Love it. Very pretty, what is it, French?"

"It means sleepless in Galician, more or less."

His smile never seems to fade. I used to wonder if he's faking it, but now I know for certain he isn't. He's genuinely happy with his life. "Lovely name, and a platonically lovely shell. Anywho, I sent out the text with appointment windows for the actual transplanting, so I've got about two hours before the first one. Whatcha been up to, Lena Sendurmir?"

"Quit my office job, joined the magic police until I was shot me through the head."

"Pfft. Probably hard to explain that one away." He pauses briefly, his smile dropping ever so slightly. "Lena, you know you don't have to fake expressions with me, so what's the deal there?"

"Finally figured it out. I have everything connected to the feeding tentacle thing I used before consciousness, which apparently has very organic nerve fibers. I never even thought to check."

"That's a crazy workaround. I'm surprised that functions at all." He restrains his curiosity, but I see it start to nag at him. He's always been good about not asking me annoying questions.

"Me too. And to spare your mind, I've had an innately known appendage since I appeared. Kinda thicker than you'd expect, really disorganized flesh. Not terribly exciting, but it has a kind of nervous system I managed to hook into my body."

"Ohh. That makes a lot of sense." I can see the tension of an unresolved question fade from his eyes. "So, why quit your job? I thought you wanted the drudgery of human experience?"

I smile faintly, remembering how naive I was when I first started living on my own. "Fell out of love with that sentiment pretty fast. I quit because I realized I didn't actually know who I was, since I've always just been a reflection of other people. I've started keeping a journal." I pull it from my pocket, and offer it to Shirai. He gingerly takes it in both hands, carefully flipping through it.

"Romantic attraction? Well well well, looks like Lena's getting the human experience after all." He offers it back, and I fill in another page.

#18: I feel a lot of gratitude towards a friend who helped me for a long time. He took me in and helped me immensely, despite it only becoming mutually beneficial later on.

I offer the journal and pen to him again.

"You sure?" he asks, accepting them with reverence.

"I'm sure."

He adds a "Shirai was here!" to the page, with a sketch of an anatomically correct heart, before returning my journal and pen. "Still, though, who's this Mirka person? Did you finally make a second friend?"

"I have four friends, actually. Since I promised to stop faking myself, I've actually shown my real self to three people over the last month."

"I'm really happy to hear that, you've always been a bit lonely. And don't give me that 'oh actually I'm a terrible sociopathic monster' routine, because you need friends too. More importantly, is Mirka the one you're hot for?" Shirai waggles his eyebrows at me.

I answer with a terse smile.

"I love this. You gotta tell me more."

"Yeah, okay... she was my partner during my brief stint as a magic cop, and needed a place to crash for a bit while her apartment was being worked on. I really liked come home to her, and then she said my core was pretty and hypnotic, and that it was like living onyx."

He sits on the autopsy table the corpses were on just an hour and a half ago. "She's into you."

"I asked another friend, and he said it could just be an observation."

"Trust me. As someone in an unconventional relationship myself, I know the signs." He tilts his head towards the general direction of the refrigerators off in another room. "Your friend complimented your nature directly. If she was being nice, she'd be like 'oh your core really matches your eyes' or something equally lame. When I met Melo, I was just stunned by her color, how firmly she held onto the sea ice, the way she bloomed in the spring..." He covers his face with his hands, his smile growing ever wider. "Sorry, I'm getting mushy."

"Don't be. It's reassuring. Even if its not Mirka, there's probably someone out there for me. I mean for me, not just for my shells. I made that mistake once, not planning on doing it again."