[M/M] [History, Kowloon Walled City] Hong Kong 1950: Dom Wanted for Crime Drama

[Sekah]

KOWLOON WALLED CITY AU — Set in Kowloon Walled City (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City / http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2139914/A-rare-insight-Kowloon-Walled-City.html). Kowloon Walled City was run by crime syndicates. It was entirely lawless: the government of Hong Kong left it totally alone, the only thing they provided was mail service. More brothels than schools in it, and it was always dark, unless you had a place on the walls or next to the roof. It was constructed without the aid of a single solitary engineer. 50,000 people lived there. People ran from the law into it a lot. Your character is someone trying to run from the long arm of the law. My character is a boy who's lived his whole goddamn life in this five block radius, owned by the triad.

FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT, THE STARTER!

"Watch him," the boss said.

He was chain-smoking a cigarette with the window open—he had a corner apartment right up against the roof with a wide window and plants lining it, true luxury. Seeing the curlicues of smoke made Taiga's own lungs ache. But he couldn't smoke now, in front of the leader of the biggest triad in the lightless city.

"Alright, sir," Taiga replied dutifully.

"Move in with him. Make him happy. If he has needs—take care of them."

"Yes, sir," Taiga said, drawing himself up, trying not to seem unwilling to satiate his needs.

"And Taiga—"

Taiga eyed him.

"—try to smile, boy. You're cute when you smile, you know."

It was just muscles in his face. Taiga's lips curled up. He smiled.

"Alright," the boss chuckled, "get out of here."

Taiga didn't need any more incentive. He bowed, and then he went.

Kowloon Walled City was a rat's warren and few knew its intimacies. Maybe only the postmen knew all of it. Things dripped under the odd lights, sometimes right on Taiga's head. Cockroaches disappeared under his foot. He picked his way through garbage, through odd hallways that swung around and headed nowhere.

You wouldn't know it looking at the man's face, but he was excited, like he always was getting to meet an outsider.

This man wasn't just an outsider—he was a foreigner. A European. And the triad was courting him for one reason or another, so he'd gotten a corner apartment—a window and the roof. The luxury was mind-blowing to Taiga.

He passed some rats that didn't even flee when he sidled by them, eyeing him and looking perfectly willing to attack him before he attacked them.

Those rats were always killing cats, even sometimes unattended children. It was life. It was the way of things. Someone told Taiga once there were fifty thousand people in Kowloon. That seemed high, but probably accurate. Taiga had lived in these six blocks his whole life, since he was born here, and he was constantly finding shops he'd never seen that had been here for ten years, meeting people he'd never known.

He was triad-marked and he had the tattoos on his shoulder, bared beneath his dark grey wife-beater with holes under the armpit. Nobody messed with him, and he knew the territories his triad controlled, the areas that belonged to us and the ones that belonged to others.

He turned a sudden narrow corner to a metal stairway that didn't look possible and climbed it two at a time, ignoring the banisters because rust like that could cut into you and cause lockjaw. A man had told him that once and he'd never touched the rust stained areas again.

Here he was. The far edge of his triad's territory. There was the apartment, Luck Dragon 55C. He rapped smartly on the door, unable to suppress his excitement.

An outsider. A foreigner. A corner apartment!

He wiped a drip that had hit his forehead and smiled. This was moving up.

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