The Jasmine Tooth

Rakhil’s laughter fills the small kitchen, brighter than the light spilling through the frosted panes. She ties her purple hair in a loose knot, strands escaping as she fusses over the kettle.

“Sit still,” she chides, glancing over her shoulder. “You’re making the table shake.”

I grin faintly, leaning back in the chair that looks far too fragile for me. “Table is weak,” I say in my angular accent. “Probably from IKEA.”

She crosses the room and sets a plate in front of me: burnt eggs, nuclear bacon, charred toast. She kisses my cheek, her lips warm against the rough bristles.

“Then I guess we’ll have to find a table as strong as you,” she teases.

I catch her hand before she moves away, pulling her gently into my lap. She gasps, mock-offended, then loops her arms around my neck. I bury my face in the curve of her shoulder, breathing in the faint scent of her soap.

“You are warm,” I murmur.

“That’s because you steal all the heat,” she jokes, brushing the back of her fingers along my jaw. “Maybe I should knit you a scarf so you stop stealing mine.”

I chuckle but refuse to let her go. “And cover me in glitter? I think not.”

For a long moment, we sit, the kettle’s soft hiss filling the room. Then Rakhil tilts her head and asks, almost casually, “Do you think we’ll ever get married, my love?”

I love, and fear, her spontaneity. The question lands between us like a drop in still water. Small, but rippling outward.

Outside, a shadow passes across the frosted glass. Just a flicker. Just enough to make me wonder if something moved.

I don’t answer right away. My arms stay around her, but something in me goes still, as if bracing against an unseen wind.

Rakhil searches my face, waiting.

And then…

“Do you think Lindsay Troy will have more children?”

It catches me off guard. It’s a different voice entirely. From a place I don’t want to return to. From a time that pales to these moments.

I want to hold on to her, to stay in this small kitchen forever. But the light fades, and she rises, slipping from my lap as if I have no strength to keep her. She walks into darkness, and clinking glasses rise in her place.

—

“Eh?” I grunted and blinked.

“Do you think Lindsay Troy will have more children?”

Arina’s sheepish look told me she instantly remembered who she was asking. She smoothed the tablecloth in front of her and started tapping at her phone, blue light washing over her features.

Probably texting her girlfriend.

The clink of glasses and the low drone of conversation surrounded us. I was grateful that Lindsay had thought to give me a chair big enough for my frame.

I was grumpy. Lemieux was on my mind. I had no idea this night would tie into ghosts, both personal and professional, and what waited, weeks later, in the semifinals.

Still, Lindsay’s wedding reception was alive with light and movement. I was a crimson-clad rock in the corner.

I’d seen Lindsay’s face a thousand times, in all its permutations. Anger. Frustration. But happiness? Like this?

Never.

It changed a person’s face. Happiness. It was infectious.

I wanted to catch it.

I stared at her, hard, trying to burn this version into my mind. To anyone else, it looked like a glare.

That was the point.

But no matter how long I looked, I couldn’t erase the other image. Her face in Moscow, standing in the back at my mother’s funeral, eyes red, cheeks glistening with tears.

I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted her happy visage to win until it lost.

I looked away. The “glare” went with it. Holding on any longer would have felt like living through it again.

I didn’t know why I was here. No one wanted to talk to me. I had no interest in talking to them. I sat next to Arina in a room built for joy.

I wanted to call all these fools sycophants. But they weren’t.

They were genuinely happy for her and Wade.

So was I.

She scanned the room once, and for a moment her brilliant eyes fell upon the scarlet mountain and the sparrow at his side. Among the swirl of friends and family, her gaze lingered on us. Arina waved, bright and easy, but I stayed stone.

I thought about offering a smile. Instead, I sat up straighter and ground my teeth.

I slid my tongue along the tooth.

—

You will never know how often I think of you.

Every single day.

It’s not because of what I did, though that would be enough. It’s because you are always with me, in a way no one else could ever understand.

When they replaced the tooth you knocked out, I thought it would be nothing. Just a piece of porcelain. Another replacement part of the machine.

Every time my tongue brushes against it, every time in anger or pain, you are there.

Even when Troy looked my way, when I yearned for something I couldn’t have, you were there for that, too.

Sharp as the night I earned you.

My Jasmine Tooth.

Chandler would hate to know that he’s not the only one who carries you. You’re more a part of me now than you ever were of him.

Every word I speak, every bite I take, you’re there with me.

I committed to victory, no matter the cost. The sound when I put you down. The sight of you gazing up with my boot hovering over your head.

Worth it.

You’re foreign, nestled amongst the weathered crags of your older Russian brothers and sisters.

The Jasmine Tooth is my prize. It's proof that the war with Chandler ended in the cage. A total victory. The trophy in my mouth, and on the mat. I won. And I kept what I took.

It is something terrible.

And in a way… something special. Because it’s mine.

Music swells. Laughter rises.

I want to be somewhere else. Somewhere warm.

Somewhere quiet.

—

The kitchen is as it was before. Sunlight on the table. The faint smell of tea in the air. Rakhil is beautiful.

She smiles in that quiet way that makes me feel alive. She speaks from her heart, though I do not know if she speaks the truth.

“You’d be a good father, you know.”

“I am not sure.”

“I am.” She skips around behind my chair. I sink into the hands on my shoulders. “Mr. Praporshchik, you care more than you want people to think. You look after people. You’d look after them.”

Them.

A child.

Our child.

I glare at the cold plate of food in front of me.

She doesn’t know it’s impossible. She speaks of a myth, not a future.

The sunlight chills. I push my plate away and stand too quickly. She notices, but doesn’t move.

“I have to go,” I tell her.

She doesn’t understand why, and that’s what cuts deepest. Not her pain, but the way she sees mine and can’t reach it. She stares at me, pleading, confused.

I repeat myself.

—

“I have to go.”

The food, the light, my love. All gone. I return to the warm, crowded reception.

Arina hurried to keep up as I thundered toward the gift area, gaudy boxes piled high in capitalist indulgence. I set mine among them with care. She lingered, then fell in line behind me.

I wanted to look back at Lindsay. To see her face again. To let that happiness overwrite the memory that still clawed at me.

But I couldn’t.

—

Chandler fucking Tsonda.

Some false God must really have it out for me.

My side of the Almasy Bracket was stacked with unfinished business. Fontaine. Jiles. Hanlon. Colton.

Chandler Tsonda was one whose business I’d settled in WARCHAMBER. The others, the ones I wanted to finish, were gone. He was all that remained, the bastard. Standing in my way once again.

He was scraping the bottom of my patience.

I should have felt relief. A thread already cut.

Instead, I felt the cold weight pressing on my jaw. My Jasmine Tooth.

I leaned toward the bathroom mirror, running my tongue along it. Checking for cracks that weren’t there. The damage was deeper than porcelain. Behind me, my Moscow apartment stared back. Dust in the corners. Curtains heavy against the light. Quieter since Mother passed.

Speedy’s reflection appeared in the mirror before I heard him shuffle in. No words at first, just the careful way he looked me over, reading my mood like an old book.

“You okay?” he finally asked.

I nodded once.

He left as quietly as he came. That’s Speedy. Never in the way.

Always close enough when I need him.

When I joined him, he held a picture of three vibrant flowers.

“Luz drew these for them,” Speedy said.

The paper carried the warmth of Havana. I folded it and slid it into my breast pocket.

“I’ll wait in the car,” he said. When the door closed, I let the paper settle against my heart. A gift for those waiting in silence.

—

Kuntsevo’s gates rose from the street, black wrought iron polished by age. Beyond them, the noise of Moscow thinned to a hush. Gravel paths and leaning birches waited ahead.

They say it’s cliché to visit a cemetery when something weighs on the mind. Maybe it is. But at my age, most of the people I cared about were here. Let them scoff. The stones didn’t care.

Arina was there before me, in her coat and gloves, brushing leaves and dirt from the stones like some silent steward. Sergei, Fanya, and Kliment didn’t mind. She moved gently, as though each sweep might wake them.

If only.

I wished Alexei were here. But for someone so accustomed to death, he couldn’t bear to enter Kuntsevo. Not after Mother’s passing.

I pushed the gate open.

Arina straightened a fresh bouquet for Mother, recently left by fans.

“You did not have to,” I said.

Her eyes were red. She simply shook her head, as if to say, I wanted to, before walking past me.

How did I become the second oldest of us four? My father was fifty. My brother, twenty-three.

A crow landed on the fence. I looked down at the uneven, patchy grass and asked the stones, “Is this where the business finishes? Is the rest of it a lie?”

At first, I thought it was only a trick of light, the way shadows shift when the wind bent the birch branches. But then I heard it. Soft, quick footfalls in the grass, the fleeting sound of laughter darting between the graves.

A small figure wove in and out of the markers. Too fast to follow. No face. No name. Just the shape of what could have been, the ghost I had carried for two decades.

I knew this ghost.

Not a wound.

Not a scar.

Just an empty place I had carved myself.

A shape that never took form. Not for lack of love, but because of life I could not give.

It flitted about, giggling, before stopping beside me. I glanced down, lacking the courage to turn my head. Faceless. Formless. Yet beautiful in my heart. The most beautiful thing.

It stood close enough to touch. Close enough to haunt. The air in my chest thinned at the faint pressure of a small hand in mine. Warm for a moment, then colder than the wind.

I couldn’t let you go.

Would you have my eyes, or hers?

Would you have been tall and awkward, like me?

By now you would have been grown. Old enough to stand across from me and ask why I was gone so often.

Would you have hated the life I lived? The blood I spilled? The way I hurt those smaller than me?

You followed me for twenty years. A weight that no fight can shake. Unfinished business with no end.

When I worked up the courage to look at you, you were gone.

Arina stood there, coat buttoned, her hand in mine. Silent. Her grip was steady, warm, alive. Her eyes were damp, fixed not on me, but my family.

She didn’t belong here. She’s too young for this place, too full of stubborn hope that kept her moving even when the world had taken a knife to her.

I tightened my fingers around hers. Just enough for her to notice. She glanced at me, and in her eyes was something that made my heart ache.

She knew what I did to Jasmine. I didn’t hide it anymore. She knew enough, and still she was here.

What should have felt like a mercy didn’t. I watched another piece of her innocence break off and fall away forever, simply from holding my hand. It buried itself in the dirt while my poison passed into her.

Nothing but the caw of a crow and the rustle of birch leaves against the cemetery wall.

I told myself business like ours ended, Chandler. You get a beginning, a middle, an end. I told myself it ended in the WARCHAMBER, with you on the mat. That the tooth was the final word.

I ground my teeth and felt the porcelain’s edge. My Jasmine Tooth. The trophy that proved it was over.

The crow shifted its wings. The birches whispered overhead. Arina stayed beside me, patient.

A breeze moved through the cemetery, bending grass over the graves. Arina’s gloved hand slipped from mine. She knelt, drew a flower from her coat, and laid it on Mother and Father. A kiss to the petals, then her fingers traced the cold brow of Kliment.

As she stepped to my side, I gave my family the gift from a beautiful little girl in Havana and whispered to them all I had to say.

We remained until the cold settled into our bones.

I told myself it was enough.

Then, without a word, we left.

—

The locker room was quiet. Not the quiet before a storm. Just the kind when there’s nothing left to say.

My shirt stretched across my back, suspenders over my shoulders. I bent forward to lace my boots when I heard the door click shut.

Arina.

She slipped inside and walked over without a word, then fixed the twist in my left suspender.

“You need it to sit right,” she said.

Her voice was steady, but there was something beneath it.

“I cannot bear to think what he will do to you,” she added, eyes on the strap, not me. “Chandler will want revenge. For Jasmine. For everything.”

I rose and stared at her in the mirror. Side by side, she looked so small next to me.

“I know,” I replied. She didn’t flinch.

She straightened her back, set her jaw, looking at me in the reflection.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said quietly. “About this match with Chandler. Jasmine. Your family. Speedy. Even Alexei.”

She paused, long enough for the silence to settle.

“And about the question I asked you at the reception. About Lindsay and children.”

Her voice didn’t waver, but it softened.

“I realize now… my father isn’t coming back.”

She sounded hopeless.

She sounded Russian.

I hated it.

“I used to think he might,” she continued. “That maybe he’d change. That maybe I’d matter enough. But I don’t think that anymore.” She hesitated, almost shyly. “I know I sound silly. But I’ve been thinking… maybe I don’t need him. Maybe… I already have a family.”

She glanced away, then back and I saw her muster the courage to stare.

In the corner of the mirror, behind us, something moved. A small, pale shape. My ghost. It drifted forward, slow, as if testing the air, then reached for her. Wispy arms slid around Arina’s shoulders and seemed to embrace her as my ghost slowly sank into her.

I stared, and something in me shifted. The ghost hadn’t vanished. It had chosen her. And she let it in. Not with fear. Not with resistance. But quiet acceptance.

Weeks ago, she had asked me if Lindsay Troy would ever have more children.

I told her I didn’t know.

Not because I care about Troy’s family. Her children were a pain in the neck. Her new husband hated me. But because of what was behind the question. Maybe Arina, so young, didn’t even know. Would Lindsay be willing to leave another piece of herself behind? Someone to carry her forward when she was gone?

Arina’s words about family still hung between us unanswered. But after the ghost they sounded different.

“He won’t stop. He’ll protect Jasmine’s honor with a father’s fervor,” Arina said.

I ran my tongue along the Jasmine Tooth and flinched when it caught my flesh, sharp enough to draw blood. The taste of iron bloomed, hot and metallic, pulling the thought deeper. Some wounds stay open, no matter how much porcelain you seal them with.

She turned toward me, and I mirrored her. She adjusted my suspenders again, eyes down.

“My father never fought for me,” she said quietly. “He chose the bottle. But I think… if you had a daughter, you’d fight for her.”

Her eyes tilted to mine, brave now. “If you’d have one.”

She didn’t waver. Neither did I. My hand rose, settling warm and heavy on the back of her head. Enough for her to know.

I have you too.

This wasn’t Rakhil. Not that love, or the future I could never give. But this was a love. Different. Heavier. Older. A bond I thought I’d never have, and Arina felt the same.

Then I let go. Not because it passed, but because I knew it would stay with me.

She lingered, eyes searching mine.

“I want to be there,” she said softly. “Not in the back. Not watching from afar. I want to stand with you. Tonight.”

It wasn't about protection. Not for her. Not for me. It was about being seen. Together.

“Chandler might–”

She exhaled, slow, steady, as if letting go of the fear that kept her quiet until now. “Then let him see we stand for each other. What he couldn’t keep, we won’t lose.”

—

Chandler Tsonda.

Now I understand.

For a long time, I thought the porcelain tooth in my mouth was the end of our business. Jasmine knocked it out, I took care of her, and replaced it. I carried her name in my jaw like a scar, and I thought that was it. A permanent mark, yes, but a closed chapter.

I was wrong.

The Jasmine Tooth was never the end. It was the beginning. A reminder that you and I will never be finished. You’ll think about Jasmine until you die. So will I. Not in the same way. Not for the same reasons. But it will be there. Always.

And I know why.

I saw it tonight. The ghost I carried for twenty years finally found a home that accepted it. It chose someone else to carry it forward. Someone who looked me in the eye and said, “I have you.”

I don’t know if Lindsay Troy will ever be willing to leave another part of herself behind. But I have. Not because I chose to. But because she did.

From one surrogate father to another, I know what it means. The pull to protect, to fight, to bleed for someone who looks to you for strength. You think that’s why you’ll win. That it gives you an edge. Because I’m just a bully, and you’re something more?

You’re not. Not anymore.

Tonight, she’ll be at my side when I walk to that ring. Her choice. Not mine. And you’ll see her, Chandler. You’ll see the one who chose me standing there, and you’ll have to wrestle with that truth.

You’ll come at me with Jasmine’s memory in your chest like a blade in your hand, swinging to avenge something you can’t change.

I don’t regret what I did. You couldn’t stop me then, and you won’t stop me now. This will never be about you and me. It’s about the people who stand behind us, and the pieces of ourselves we leave with them.

You have yours. I have mine.

We’ll fight until neither of us can stand. Until every drop of blood in our bodies is spilled. Because I know this business will outlive us both.

And when it's over, when you’re battered and bleeding, again? I’ll be waiting for the next time.

I’m sorry she’s not yours, Rakhil. But I think you would have loved her. Just as I do.

The Jasmine Tooth will be with me in the ring, Chandler. The proof of your weakness. And when you fall, it won’t be memory, ideology, or the Red Scare that breaks you.

It’ll be the weight of the one who chose me.