In his lesser years, Rai had gotten good amount of grief from the whims and words of children.     

His own classmates found the words ‘halfblood’ and ‘crossbreed’ and ‘mutt’ very handy even in supposedly civil conversations, and it naturally led to a breadth of jokes about his mother. Even worse was the visible mutation of his hands, which adults told him to display proudly, as that would demonstrate their kind hearts and open minds towards creatures such as him. What became of the mongrel’s own heart and mind as a result of their great altruism, often at the damp hands and sneers of their own children, didn’t count. And so came the rumors. Jack off too much and you’ll end up like the halfbreed here. Along with insults towards mothers, Rai also quickly became fluent in scare tactics targeting a teen’s ‘nighttime play’. His plentiful education also taught him that planting his glowing knuckles to some snickering faces could be worth it.

But Rai had been pretty stupid in his school days, so for the most part he sulked and took the brunt of it.

So naturally, when sights were shifted to a boy the year below him, he was quick to catch on, and make sure that’s where they stayed. The boy was part faerie, lunchtime gossip said, and clearly thought he was better than everyone else and would probably molest other boys in the showers and hook up with old men after hours, the usual accusations. In retrospect this newcomer was tiny and shy, with a bum leg and skin like paper, but to a bunch of roving teens, that only made a beatdown all the more appealing.

The social studies books (newly printed, to include more of society’s new additions) suggested that most faeries did not eat meat. The explanation was a five-page historical diatribe with boring black-and-white photos that nobody bothered to look at. They knew enough. So Rai huddled up alongside six of his classmates, bundling up a slab of rotting pork in lettuce, preparing for cafeteria Salad Day. 

The new boy was almost too keen to fall for the distraction that was made while someone shoved the rancid bundle onto his plate. There were suspicions that he knew what the plan was, but breaths dispersed when he walked off, sat down (at a table on his own) and dug in.

The timing of the whole ordeal was not exactly artistic, but Rai knew that in the end the faerie kid had begun to choke, staggered off his seat, overturned a trash can, and vomited violently all over the linoleum while approximately half of the crowd laughed and the rest looked away. Rai did some of both. Then the boy fell to the floor, hid his head against the corner of a table and landed face up, vomit bubbling green, white and red up his mouth like a fountain, and he began to have a seizure, convulsing like a fish, which was the most hilarious thing Rai and his cohorts had ever witnessed. 

True enough that Rai hadn’t seen a lot of funny things in his youth.

It was an uncomfortable memory, but he supposed he deserved the sting. Even if he didn’t care about a person who stood before him, it benefited his future conscience to push himself toward decency against any odds, as long as the odds also precluded loss of life or limb. If that wasn’t achievable, then he’d at least give lip service to show he meant to no harm. Failing that, all one could do was just shut up and take the damage. Maybe all those teachers and so-called mentors, with their hollow but charitable words, had known all along. 

That was maturity. Fortunately he’d learned of it before joining the police force. He must have been in junior high during salad incident. Or had it been as far as college…?

Either way, Rai was willing to allow that he’d matured enough to fit into society. He was baseline acceptable, it didn’t matter what names were slung at him. He’d become something of a delicate eater himself, and would certainly never wish poisoning, choking, or inappropriate food habits in anyone’s direction, in any way.

So why was he being punished with a front-row view of six large men (well, one woman) shoving clammy hot dogs, buns and all, down their throats? Any why was everyone around him - adults as far as he could see - so enraptured?

He had been looking for a way to escape the moment the announcer, some leggy ragdoll in a blue leisure suit who called himself ‘Zip Cobalt’, loped onstage with a mic in hand. Rai missed whatever the opening announcements were, as well as the introduction of the contestants. In a brief interlude, the crowd swayed, creating an opening, and he was about to urge Sao through it when they were wrapped in again, the wall of gawkers studier than ever.

He hoped for a stroke of karma, for trying to help Sao out, but got none of it. Sao's attention was fully dedicated to the stage.

Cobalt blew on an oversized whistle, with a sound that tore its way through the speakers so violently that even Sao flinched. Rai thought that would be enough, but insane masochist he was, Sao only winced, uncapped his bottle for a sip of water, and faced the stage again.

This was when Rai saw the hot dogs, hundreds of them stacked in piles so tall they obscured the contestants faces from his viewpoint. 

Around him the crowd was roaring or screaming or howling in delight. 

Rai tried to keep his head down after that, but morbid curiosity would be the death of him. He took a peek and felt his eyes widen, lids wrenched back as if pierced by hooks. He was stuck. There was nothing plain about the discomfort here; Rai prided his viewing of horror flicks and had stared down a number of very real corpses over the course of his career, but the gastric feat happening onstage - of six living humans, brimming with life and fully non-fictional - was something else entirely. He thought of Sao, who lamented the loss of human connection and warmth that would come as Chimera and their techno-ilk took over the continent.

Catching fragments of hot dog on his sleeves (how the fuck did they fall so far from the table?) Rai thought the end couldn’t come soon enough.

The pyramids of food had declined enough for Rai to view the charming faces behind them. One by one they rolled in like wet, red bullseyes, cheeks screwed in such focus Rai would have admired them if only that attention could have been dedicated to anything else. Bear trapping, toenail-clipping, crosswords, anything. Something less handsy. With less crumbs. And spit.

A timer hanging on the stage backdrop, wreathed in ribbons and gold foil, broadcasted that there were three minutes to go.

At or around the mark of one minute remaining, Contestant #6 stopped in a fit, convulsing like a strangled snake, cheeks bulging. No wonder, Rai thought, he had eaten his way a good chunk ahead of the others, his stack of hot dogs reduced to its base. The question was why nobody was concerned about his abrupt halt.

Rai swiveled, searching for any signs of concern, angling for a voice of reason. But no, he was still stuck in this absurd, meat-sweat universe.

“Sao. What’s up with that guy?” All he saw was the back of Sao’s head. Of course, Rai could hardly hear himself speak. “Is that normal? Is he okay?”

But Sao was thoroughly engrossed in the show, with his serene smile and clean, shiny jacket still perfectly intact. Cool as an ice floe on the hellish waves, his fingers played at the plastic bottle like he were watching an orchestra perform. Rai stared at him, and then the stage, the back at Sao, wondering if he should just make a run for it on his own. The red-faced contestant was going to hurl.

That, or he was going to choke out right in front of a few hundred people. Rai’s hands itched. He pulled them from his pockets and made a move for the stage.

Onstage, Zip Cobalt, who had been running his commentary at a sprint ever since the start of the round, caught his eye. He had bright eyes, but a wide, spacious look that reminded Rai of a rabbit or deer. Rai jabbed a finger violently in the direction of Contestant #6, who was bent over the table now, heaving. Cobalt took a look and then blinked back to Rai without a single tweak to his empty stare.

Rai balled his fists and prepared to take the stage himself, pushing through to the edge of the platform.

“Rai, what’s going on?”

Sao had come up beside him. Rai, again, pointed out #6 who had a few fingers jammed into his mouth now, but with a mouth was so full of brown pulp they didn’t make much difference. “Am I losing my mind here? That guy. Look at him, he’s almost under the table! Is that normal? He’s going purple.”

“Oh…”

“This is crazy. Someone has to help him.” He made for the stage again.

“Rai! You don’t need to get up there. Just wait a minute, see how it goes.”

“No - are you nuts?”

“Take it easy. This isn’t as strange as you-”

“I can’t believe you, of all people, can just watch this,” Rai began.

“It will be fine, Rai.”

Rai clawed his hair. “I’m not the one who needs help here!” He was drowned out as the crowd thundered with the final countdown.

Five. Four.

There was no way he should have been able to hear the smacking of lips and gargle of sopping bread over the rising chaos, but somehow, it was all coming through so loud and clear. He closed his eyes.

Three. Two.

A scream. Rai snapped his eyes open again. Contestant #6, suddenly refreshed, raised his head and held his arms high.

“One!” boomed the crowd, the speakers, and a rumbling voice that had situated itself directly behind Rai’s ear. 

“Trae, what the hell!”

But Trae, bouncing up and down in his mammoth winter coat, ignored him. The crowd kept their voices going at a steady clip, at the stirring of Cobalt, as he paced the stage beside several white-suited technicians. The technicians, he explained for the newcomers, checked the surroundings for discarded food and signs of illicit vomit - though he did not explain what legitimate vomit might be. Then they would compare the scales below each tray to see who’d managed to cram down the most in the ten minute time frame.

Contestant #6, now clear-faced and content, sat with his hands behind his head alongside his competitors, who somehow looked worse for wear than he did.

Cobalt and the technicians had a short conversation before nodding decisively, and Cobalt held the microphone aloft again, twirling it, winding the audience into a frenzy of anticipation. “And the winner is…” 

Trae was fireball of hair and fabric, arms up and yelling his lungs out. He wasn’t the only one.

Cobalt flung his arm wide. “Six! Six is our winner with - you can’t even make this up, folks - an even 6-point-o kilos of hot dogs, down the hatch! Let’s hear it for Number Six!”

“I knew it! I knew it!” Trae announced, once again inches from Rai’s ear. Rai gave him a hard shove, which achieved nothing. Trae’s coat was so thick it might have been bulletproof.

“Trae, you made it just in time,” Sao said.

“I heard the speakers start and I ran right back. And you guys!” Trae clapped his hands together like a child. “I didn’t expect to see you in the front row, Rai! You got to see everything.”

“Not a frequent watcher, then?” Sao asked, smiling. Rai was on the brink of giving him a shove too; no doubt it would be a more rewarding experience than Trae offered.

“Rai didn’t want to watch any of the Meat Cup prelims,” Trae explained. “Well, he watched the second round when I showed it to him. Was it the second? That one where a guy in the lead threw up everything just before the end. He thought it was kind of gross.”

“I remember that round.” Sao made a face. “And he was disqualified too. Such a shame.”

“For throwing up in the match?”

“Yes. A reversal of fortune. That’s the term, I think. Even if he’d held it to the end, there’s a grace period that can still result in disqualification. Twenty seconds, I think? Though, during the match if it gets on the food or table-”

Rai held his hands up. “Sounds like a great time.”

“I suppose it always is a little unpleasant, to some extent.” Sao smiled at the crowd. “I certainly don’t dream of competing. At the same time, it’s fascinating to watch people push the human envelope, in a way that I don’t have to envy.” He chuckled. “It sounds cruel, I know - I wouldn’t have imagined bringing it up over lunch at the office. Competitive eating’s not for everyone. But for me, I suppose it’s all about indulging.”

He chuckled at that again, but straightened when he thought Rai was about to stalk off.

“However, we all have to respect the professionals. It takes a lot of work to make it to the top; they monitor their schedules and diets for months in preparation, and as you can imagine, the cooldown periods are intense. Often they’re forced to exercise as hard as traditional athletes to stay in shape and flexible.”

Trae nodded sagely. “Even I can’t manage that part. Of course, Life Fountains aren’t allowed to compete.”

“I kind of gathered,” Rai said curtly. “That would be a disaster.”

Sao clapped politely for Contestant #6, who had come forth to be pinned with a large blue ribbon, like a winning pie at the fair. “For a greenhorn watcher, though, you had a feeling about #6 being different from the others. Didn’t you?”

Sao truly was a class act under even the worst of circumstances. Rai glared a hole at his shining beacon of chivalry. 

“That guy looked like he was going to suffocate.”

“But you saw he was trying something different.”

“If turning purple is an ‘approach’.”

A sigh from Sao but, sensing he was needed, Trae perked up, “He was storing food in his mouth. In his cheeks, you know, like a hamster. The top level guys do it all the time. Sometimes they just have to hold their breath because there’s so much.”

Sao nodded. “Six there was pushing himself a bit far, and choking is always a danger in eating contests - but Trae is correct, it is a common tactic. Always keeping something in the mouth, keeping the cycle going, I think is the idea. Of course, by the end you have to spit it out or swallow it. What you saw was the man finishing up with the latter.”

“I guess it worked out for him, then.” 

The contestants had long left the stage, and the tables were being wiped. Rai searched the crowd. Why were they loitering, as if they were the ones inflicted with food comas?

“So, you feeling alright?” Sao asked.

“I need another coffee.”

“You look like it.”

The white front of the East Artisans stall gleamed in his mind, the line of drips, and the sharp, earthy blend from the farms that fringed the forest. And that barista who was waiting to hear who’d won. Was it Cadoc? Nero? Rai frowned. The names of the contestants were a fog to him; not only did he miss their introductions, but during the match Zip Cobalt only referred to them by number, as if he’d forgotten the script himself. If Rai were to relay the events to the barista, no doubt he’d be faced with disappointment. It had been a writhing, shrieking hell in the moment, but his reflection of the events were completely underwhelming.

“Can’t believe the whole thing was only ten minutes,” he said.

Trae tilted his head like a curious dog, shaggy hair flopping over his shoulder. Sao, on the other hand, went still.

“Longest ten minutes of my life, though,” Rai continued.

Sao and Trae exchanged a look, something they hadn’t done before, then turned to their naive friend as one.

“What we just watched,” Sao said, with the delicate manner of a mortician, “was the pregame. It was only an amateur exhibition. The Cup Semifinals haven’t started yet - the main event - that one will be thirty minutes long.”

“Thirty?”

“The dish should be something a little more interesting, too,” Sao added, as if that nugget would help.

Words died in Rai’s throat before they could be released.

“It’s going to start really soon,” Trae assured him.

“Of course, you don’t have to-” Sao began.

But a screeching chorus blew all language and reason out the door. Cobalt hopped back to the podium. The lights went down, the volume drove up, and in the clapping and bellowing Sao’s voice fell away. There was a brief moment of silence but when the spotlight swung toward the stage steps, and the tension exploded. The dome shook to its foundations when the four finalists emerged, and once again Rai was plunged into the great fleshy swell of humanity that closed around him.

There was an all-consuming odor of sweat. In the haze of salt and mayhem, his frantic animal brain recalled again his faerie classmate, and he was sick with sorrow for the four who took the stage.