My carnival game analogy may have been a little bit off. The pace of the demon incursions reminded me more of wind sprints, where Coach D would have us run end-to-end on the volleyball court until she decided we were done. It was supposed to improve our cardio, but without knowing when the whole thing would be over, it felt like pointless punishment.
“I don’t feel like we’re making any progress,” I said. “None of the other demons will give up Red Boy’s whereabouts, even under pain of death. Stamping them out while we wait for him is like having a sword hanging over our heads while we rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic.”
I was mixing my references but Erlang Shen appeared to follow well enough.
“We’ve only found sixteen so far, and already the grind is getting to me,” I said. “I can hardly believe it. What has happened to me since meeting Quentin and you and Guanyin has been the wildest mindbender imaginable and yet it still somehow turned into a grind like every other part of my life. At the current rate we’re pushing, I’m going to break down long before we catch the other eighty-two demons.”
“Ninety-two,” Erlang Shen corrected.
“See? I’m so burned out I can’t do basic math in my head. If you knew me, that would be a really worrying sign.”
I put my face in my hands. It stayed there long enough to trouble him.
“Genie?” he said tentatively.
“I haven’t talked to my best friend in a long time.”
It was the safety of my rabbit hollow that let me finally talk about what was truly wrong with this whole deal.
“I screwed things up with her really badly because of this demon business,” I said. “And I can’t even tell her why. She’ll never know what I’ve been doing, running around without her.”
Erlang Shen tiptoed around the cracks appearing in my voice, an arctic explorer suddenly finding himself on thin ice. “If she’s your friend, she’ll forgive you, no?”
“I don’t want her to forgive me. I’d rather she be angry at me forever.”
An outside observer would have assumed I was being illogical. And overdramatic. They’d tell me that Yunie and I could hash things out easily. Such a close friend would understand that I had good reasons for shutting her out recently and might even be okay with me not explaining them fully. She’d trust me when I told her I hadn’t ditched her for a boy.
Of course that was the case. I didn’t actually believe our eight-year relationship was completely over because of a single spate of neglectfulness on my part.
But that wasn’t the point. The looming monster here was the future, bearing down and unstoppable. Yunie and I were destined for different colleges, her to a specialized music program and me to any snob-factory that would have me. We knew this even before we entered high school.
We didn’t have much time left together. Our little routines were precious to me, and our big events even more so. The day when the two of us would have to buckle up and accept our inevitable drift apart was coming, and I didn’t want it to happen prematurely.
Reckoning with Yunie would be pulling up the anchor just a little bit farther. That was probably why I’d put it off for so long.
Erlang Shen, perhaps using some magical water-detecting sense, pushed the stack of flimsy brown napkins on the table over to me. I snatched them up and wadded them against my nose and eyes so that he couldn’t see my face.
Great, now I was blubbering in front of a god. Go me.
“I think of my family when things get rough,” Erlang Shen said. “When my resolve wavers.”
“The situation with them is even worse,” I said, muffled by the scratchy paper. “My parents think I
’m a hot mess right now.”
“Not my point. What I’m trying to say is that the people we care about make the grind worthwhile. Even if the two never meet.”
He stared out the window, his fingers playing lightly against the table.
“The Jade Emperor doesn’t know about half of what I do in Heaven on his behalf,” Erlang Shen said. “And yet I put up with his incompetence, his passivity, his constant rejection. Because one day he’ll see me for my abilities. I want to show my uncle what I’m capable of more than anything else in the universe. Your friend. She means a lot to you?”
“I’d do anything for her.”
I surprised myself how easily and without embarrassment I said those words. Heartfelt declarations weren’t my strong suit.
“Then keep up the good fight, for her sake.” Erlang Shen smiled at me. “You know, when I originally fought back the waters of the Great Flood, I was trying to impress my uncle and the rest of the celestial pantheon. Not invent agriculture.”
I laughed in spite of myself.