(hello, bit of a different chapter this time, but hope u all enjoy :) per usual, this one's a bit--extremely--lengthy so bear with me)
(do vote if you do so wish. coincidentally, there was a thunderstorm where i live right after i published the last chapter so👀)
hemophobia (n.)
he·mo·pho·bia
The intense or irrational fear of blood.
_________________________________________
"I don't want to play violin anymore."
My mother blinked at me from across the table. Her eyes trained on me like she was taking a scalpel to my head, peeling back the skin to poke my brain and find what made me say such a thing.
"Why not?" she asked.
"I don't like it," I said. "And the teacher always yells at me no matter what I do."
Rika leaned back from the crossfire. My brother had the fortune of being absent in a summer program at Stanford at the time.
My father, who was unfortunately there that summer, said, "You're not quitting."
"I don't like it," I pressed.
"So?"
"So why do I have to do it?" I was eleven. Why did eleven year olds have to think about anything more than the next day? "I hate it."
"Your teacher says you're doing well," my mom said, which was supposed to be an argument.
"I don't like it."
"You're going to quit all because you don't like it? That's not a reason," my father snapped.
"Why not? Hanna said she didn't like flute and she quit."
"So? You want to end up being a quitter like Hanna?" His black eyes swallowed me. "You're continuing violin. We don't raise quitters."
"I haven't gotten into Clemonte yet. I'm not leaving anything."
"And if you do? You're going to kill that opportunity?" my mother said. She shook her head. "Haruki. What's wrong with you? You do well in violin and it looks better when you stick with something."
Good impressions only.
I stood up, pushing my half-eaten dinner away. "I'm not doing violin anymore."
My father stood above me. "This isn't an argument. You have a lesson tomorrow morning, you're going."
"Iie," I said. No. Hiragana was for what you knew.
I knew I hated the violin.
My family gaped at me, the blunt words corroding the air. I stood and hoped I could stand firm enough my father wouldn't be able to move me.
But then his hand was flying and his words were cutting and his wedding ring scraped me across my cheek in a single blow. I fell to the ground and didn't get back up.
Later Rika pressed a cloth to my cheek in the quiet of my bedroom. "Never do that again," she whispered, and put a bandage to hide the cut.
I didn't know what she'd referred to: saying no or meaning it.
"Why would I take both of them?"
My mother sighed, fixing her bracelet around her silk-covered wrist. "Why not have a better chance?"
"But wouldn't it be better to just retake the SAT or just study for the ACT?" I said.
"It would be better for you to take both."
"I won't have time to study for it. I'd have to take it by October, latest." Early decision was due even sooner. "I'll just retake the SAT."
"ACT looks better for engineering," my brother called with an easy smile. "C'mon, Yuki, it's just another test to study for."
"I'm already doing the summer program at UCLA, and I have Nationals with Clemonte all of July," I said. "I can't study for those two tests on top of that and college apps."
No.
"Your sister did it." My mother pinned bloody rubies to her ears. "I don't see why you can't."
"I told you you should've taken it first semester," Kenji sang.
I glared. "I was busy."
"You're always busy."
Yes, I am. "I had finals."
"So did I."
"Whatever, Kenji, can I just talk to Mom without you constantly adding in?"
"Ochitsuke. I'm just helping you," he scoffed. "You're so sensitive. What's your deal?"
"Leave me alone."
"Don't talk to your brother like that," my mom hissed, her Japanese sharp as a blade. "He and his sister managed this. They have a point, you're being dramatic."
"I can't take both and do well on both. I'll study for the ACT."
"SAT score looks good to UCs."
"I got a 1540, isn't that good?"
"Rika got 1560," she argued. "And she got waitlisted at Berkeley."
"Because she got into MIT."
"Don't argue with me." She grabbed her purse. "Get out of those jeans, we're going to church. Ay, all those rips." She sneered at me. "Ever since you dyed your hair, you're becoming such a hassle."
I bit hard into my cheek. "Sorry."
"Get dressed. Now."
"Can I please just take—"
"You'll take both, end of story. You think I'm trying to set you up for failure?"
Always. "No."
"Get dressed."
I got a 28 on the ACT and 1520 on the SAT.
My mother said, "I told you to study. Kenji got 34."
"I didn't have time."
"Always excuses." She scoffed, tossing the score report onto the counter. "You always make so many excuses."
When I bit into my cheek this time, blood burst into my mouth like an iron sea.
"Why did you dye your hair again?" my mother snapped. "It looks terrible."
"I like it," I said.
"You look gay," Kenji said. "I'd wash that out ASAP."
"Good thing I'm not you."
"Whatever, Yuki. You look weird."
"Come on." My mother got to her feet. "We'll wash it out."
"I don't want to," I said. No.
"You know what your father will say?" she pressed, half-angry and half-fearful. She spoke about my father as if speaking about a displeased god. "Wash it out. Now."
"Why? It's hair."
"Yuki," Kenji gave me a warning look. "He'll be mad at you. Just wash it out."
"It's not your hair, so why do you care?"
"Because you look stupid." He waved me away insouciantly, laughing to himself.
My mom grabbed my hand. I yanked it back.
"I like it," I said.
She said, "I don't care."
No.
I shoved her back and she grabbed me, nails sinking into my arm. The claws scraped through my skin and I cried out, watching spots of red appear at the marred skin. Her eyes watered and welled, full of red and regret.
"Why don't you listen to me?" she yelled, snatching my arm, the back of my head. "Why don't you just listen?"
"Mom, stop," Kenji snapped as he tried to pull her off of me. "Stop."
She let me go and my body stumbled back. I collapsed against our coffee table, just for my elbow to scrape against the corner.
I cried out. A gash began to scream, a ripped seam blooming along my elbow.
"Haruki," Kenji began.
I clutched at the wound, red dripping out. My mother sobbed on the ground. Her nails pushed into her eyes as if to tear them out of her head.
I ran to my room, and hoped I'd never have to come out again.
"I'm not hungry."
Rika set the bowl down on my bed stand with a frown. "What are you doing, fasting out of rebellion?"
"If I am, is it working?" I flipped the page, Gatsby driving with Nick in the passenger seat.
"Mom is getting pretty mad," she said.
"She doesn't have to make it."
Rika pushed the book from my hands to replace it with the bowl of rice and egg. "You haven't eaten all day."
"I don't want to."
"You're injured, you should eat."
"I am?" I hissed, and she winced. The bruise around my neck burned fierce, the imprint of my father's hands still stuck there.
I turned my head. "Just...go, Rika."
"I didn't think he would do that."
"You didn't?"
"Haruki—"
"You knew."
"I didn't."
"You knew, Rika."
She pursed her lips, ducking her head. "I'm sorry."
No.
Rika lifted the bowl to me. "At least eat something," she said. "You're getting too thin. And the food will go to waste.
Good, I thought. Maybe I'll disappear completely.
I grabbed the book instead. "Not hungry," I said again.
Rika didn't try a second time.
"Ah, so handsome, your son," my grandmother said, rubbing my cheek with her thumb. She tapped my nose. "Nice nose. Like you."
My mother sat in our tiny bedroom upon her mat, folding laundry with a desolate face. She looked up at me through the sweat that beaded on her forehead from summer's burning kiss.
She looked at me with endless and empty eyes.
"So?" she scoffed. "What's good looks worth without good education?"
My obaasan shook her head and dismissed that with a sweet laugh. "Don't mind her," she told me.
I didn't.
"This is my son, Haruki."
Pastor James stuck out his hand to me. "Nice to meet you, Haruki. Welcome to Solis. What grade?"
"Tenth," I said. "Sophomore."
"Ah, maybe Emma can help you out then." He tapped her shoulder next to him. "This is my daughter."
Emma said, "Hi. I love your shirt." I looked down at the DON'T TALK SO MUCH scrawled out over it. "It's funny."
"I told you to wear something more appropriate," my mother hissed, before turning an apologetic grin to them. "Sorry. High schoolers, so rebellious."
"Oh, no, no." Pastor James smiled kindly. "Your sister told me you're into violin."
"Yeah, I just came from practice," I said.
"You should play at our banquets," Emma said, and Pastor James hummed in approval, grinning at my mother.
"He's an achiever like his siblings, huh?" he laughed.
My mother laughed with him and waved that away with a silver-adorned hand. "Oh, what's good grades worth without the extracurriculars? We're waiting for him to join Clemonte, actually."
My wrists burned at that.
Emma said, "Wanna meet my friends? Just to get to know some more people."
No.
I wanted to go home. I wanted to disappear completely.
"Sure," I replied, and let her lead me into the halls.
"Waitlisted."
My entire body winced. My sister sat at the table, her hands folded, her lips pursed. My father stood at the kitchen counter where my mother read the forbidden words from her phone.
I said, "I got into Berkeley—"
"Maybe we can call," she told my father. "Maybe ask them."
"Ask them what?" he snapped, glowering. "He's not in. Are you stupid? Why would we call? He didn't get in."
"I could still go," I said. "I got into Irvine, too."
Rika stood. "If he keeps his grades up for second semester—"
My father shoved the phone across the counter like it was a poison. He whirled and stabbed his finger through my sternum.
"What have you been doing all this time? At the most critical point of your life?" he snarled. "You've been sneaking out, spending all this time with your friends off in every other place than where you should be?"
I moved out of his reach. "What does it matter? I didn't get in, okay? I'm sorry."
"Shut up," he said. "Go to your room. Give me your phone."
"Why? What will that do? I got into other good schools, why doesn't that matter?"
Rika ducked her head away. My dad wrenched my phone from my hands, clutching the device like breaking it would be like breaking me.
"What good is second semester with a waitlist?" my mother sighed. "You're grounded."
I threatened to burst open at every pore with the boiling magma in my body. I let it spew through my clenched teeth.
"Is anything ever just enough?" I yelled.
"Go to your room," my father roared. "I don't want to see you."
No.
I went.
"What is wrong with you?"
I squeezed my hands under the tabletop. Blood rushed through my body, everything bursting and thrumming.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
My father slammed his hand on the table. "What is wrong with you?" he roared. "I don't even recognize you."
I trembled. "Why? Because he's a guy?"
"Don't even say it," my mother hissed, massaging her temples. "Haruki, I knew that boy was bad news from the start. And now this? You disobey me, skip competitions, go out, and ruin your entire life all for a boy? You don't even like him!"
"Says who?"
"Of all the ways to try to rebel, you dye your hair, you skip, but this?" She shook her head and buried her face in her hands. "Are you insane?"
Rika said, "Yuki, why would you even—"
"Don't," I snapped, eyes welling. "Don't, Rika, just don't."
"I'm trying to help you stop acting like this."
"Like what?" I stood before my father. "I didn't ruin anything. I got into good colleges, why is that not enough? I did everything you asked for and what? This is all it took for you to look at me like I'm some disappointment?"
"Everything? You humiliate your family like that and act on your stupid teenage impulses and then have the nerve to say we owe you something?" he said, his Japanese cut straight from steel and ice. "You're a stupid, spoiled child."
"I kiss a guy and that's all?" I cried, salt leaking from the corners of my eyes. "One waitlist, one kiss, and I'm not your son?"
"No, you aren't!" he roared. "We do everything good for your siblings, and we did it for you, but all you do is kill every opportunity! And now you turn into this and expect our sympathy?"
"I did everything for you!" I yelled. "I did every last thing for all of you!"
"And you wasted it all for us, too then!" my mother screamed, shoving me back from my father. "I don't recognize you anymore, Haruki. I don't know what happened to you or what went wrong—"
"I had you as my parents," I hissed.
My father struck me so hard I saw lights before I saw hardwood. Someone screamed. Someone shouted. I rolled onto my shoulder to lift myself up, even as metal burst in my mouth.
"Get out," my father said. "You owe us nothing, then fine. Deteike."
"Why is it never enough?" I cried, stumbling to my feet. "I'm your kid and you—"
"Don't call yourself mine. You think this is what I imagined when we had you?" he growled. "Look at your siblings! They tried to help you! We helped you! And this is how you thank us?"
"Thank you for what? For this?" I gestured at my stricken face.
"Get out of this house," he said.
"I'm never anything but your pawn to this family!" I cried. "No one is ever anything but just some stepping stone to your ego."
He grabbed me by my hair, and I swore the sound of the strands ripping snarled in my ears. I screamed, and someone grasped me, tried to tug me from his hold, but he only held tighter. My spine snapped against the stone of the backyard steps as every vertebrae bruised on the cold concrete.
"I said get out!" he yelled.
I scrambled to my feet to shove him back, but he only grasped me by the collar to collide knuckles to my cheek again. There was only a ring ring ring in my head.
I blinked in the red and black night, wondering if the heat in my stomach was sorrow or anger or defeat or both.
"Get out!" my father yelled. "Get out!"
No.
No, I will not.
But all I did was close my eyes, and wonder if it was possible to sleep forever.
_________________________________
If everyone was made of four bad things of the world, then Angel Young was made of nicotine smoke, thunderstorms, moving shadows, and art.
The Stereotypical would say people made of art were graceful and poised, with fingers like lace or smiles sweet like apples or eyes pulled from the sea. But the Lived could tell you the truth, and that's that those people are the farthest thing from art you'll find.
I never told him that, though, because it only ever occurred to me when I awoke in the limbo between morning and night, where Angel sat in the moving shadows with endless papers and a culprit pen. When he mumbled to himself about things I couldn't hear, and I thought telling him anything would startle him into a heart attack.
Angel was art because art was self-contradiction and complement. Angel was art because you could never stop talking with him, and he would never stop listening. Angel was art because he was still so hard to find through it all.
I didn't tell him that either.
Thunderstorms don't sleep, you see.
Technically nothing but living animals 'sleep', but storms especially. They form, shift, and dissipate. They're nothing but hot and cold and wet and dry in a cyclic turmoil, moving from one place to the next.
It dawned on me how little I knew about Angel in San Francisco, how little I knew about the Before, and how much it seemed to plague him. When his face went dark and his brown eyes froze into steel and cracking ice, his mouth suddenly still, I wondered if the Before or the Now was the truth. Or maybe they were just two truths at a constant, cyclic disagreement.
I wanted so badly to ask, to know what had cost him San Francisco and painting and Amasero Drive. I always got statements, passes, dismissals, assurances, and never answers.
What was so terrifying about the truth?
He leaned against the bathroom mirror during the second night in the Montana motel, eyes closed, cigarette unlit between his lips, shirt lazy on his shoulders and jeans low on his waist.
Black hair fell over his one, cracked open eye that watched me haunt the doorway. He looked exhausted, and wintry, and wonderful.
"Hey," he said, taking the perfect cigarette from his mouth. "You knocked?"
"Oh, sorry," I said, because I didn't.
His smile was quick and easy. "Kidding. What's up?"
"Don't light that cigarette," I said, plucking it from his hands. "I keep telling you it's bad for you." As if either one of us needed another bad habit. "Aren't you tired? It's almost midnight."
He shrugged. "I'm okay."
Are you?
"You should go to sleep." I handed him his sweats. "Or at least finish changing."
"It's a rugged look, you know?" He laughed low in his throat, calm like salted caramel and soft peaks. "I was going to change and then I figured I was too lazy."
I pushed the clothes at him. "Change and go to sleep."
He waved me away. "Why sleep?" Arms wrapped around my waist to pull me against him. "I've got you to stay up with."
Against better judgment, I wrapped my arms around his neck. "Flattering," I chuckled. "But really."
He hopped off the counter and put the clothes back in the pile. When he flicked on the lighter, its flame traced the raised scars along his skin.
I looked away. I snagged the cigarette.
"No more smoking," I said. "Think of your lungs."
"Think of my mind," he argued. "It's for my mental health."
I turned around and trashed it. "That's for your mental health. Now go to sleep."
Angel pushed his chest against my back, lips on the shell of my ear.
"Maybe later," he murmured, hands sliding over my waist.
My hand found his heart, feeling it beat quietly.
What happened?
Tell me what's wrong.
Speak
I turned my mouth into his. He kissed me with the taste of mint toothpaste and Montana dust on his tongue.
"Let's go to sleep," I said.
"Sleep will be there," he replied, fingers past the waistband of my shorts.
Soon enough, it was me against the bathroom counter, Angel's eyes half-lidded and his hands roaming south. Tell me. Speak.
"Now?" I murmured. "It's late."
September whispered above us. Angel pulled back.
"If you don't want to, it's okay," he said.
Do you?
Did you?
What happened in Seattle?
Why don't you speak?
I curled my fingers into his shirt to keep him there, like if I let go, he'd disappear all over again. Like he'd disappear and I wouldn't be lucky enough again to find him.
"I want to," I said. "It's okay."
Shadows clung under his eyes, but his smile was bright like morning. He spoke so loudly, but in a language I didn't understand. I couldn't tell if I was frustrated by what he did say or what he didn't.
I wondered how so much could change in less than a year; his grin under my lips, his fingers brushing the bare skin of my hip bone.
"You're tired," I whispered, tracing the tremble in his frame.
He tapped my shirt. "Don't talk so much."
"Not funny."
Angel kissed in a sleepless hurricane, and said, "Just relax."
What happened to you?
Who happened to you?
What keeps happening to you?
What are you so afraid of?
I should have asked.
But all I did was close my eyes and tilt my head away, Angel sinking to his knees on the bathroom carpet, as every last question disappeared into smoke.
________________________
"That's expired," I said.
Angel said, "It's barely expired."
"It's definitely expired."
"Expiration dates are corporate ploys." He opened the can of corn, and took a spoonful.
He paused. I waited.
Angel turned out the side of the car and spat it out. "Or they're legit," he groaned.
I snagged the can to toss into the plastic bag, and tied it tight for good measure. Angel chugged the last of his Coke in attempt to erase the taste.
We were paused on the side of a Pennsylvanian road, our poor excuse of a late lunch set out before us. Early October washed into our skin with a bite, full fledged autumn breaking the air into crisp, rain-riddled blue.
"What time is it?" I asked.
Angel checked his phone. "5:17."
I frowned. I could have sworn it was six less than an hour ago. "It's still that early?"
"Time flies when you're having fun," he said. "Which considering this traffic, I am most definitely not."
"We're eating expired corn on the side of the road."
"There you go, blame the rotted fruit."
"Corn is a vegetable."
"You're a vegetable."
I waved him off. Angel gestured at the map "Now where to? Because as much as I love Pennsylvania, I don't think it likes me that much. Considering the corn."
"How about Maine?"
"What's in Maine?" he asked.
"I don't know. Lighthouses?"
"And?"
"Lobster?"
"Wow. Compelling argument," he snorted. "What about New Jersey? It's like the Las Vegas of the east coast except people live there."
"People live in Las Vegas."
"That's a myth made up by Las Vegas. It's a desert."
"Technically, we live in a desert, too."
"Also a myth. Made up by Las Vegas."
I laughed. Angel leaned over me, his hair brushing my temples, and pointed.
"What about New York?" he asked.
I paused. "New York?" I repeated.
"It's an American staple. And their food is peak deliciousness," he said, lifting a lit cigarette to his lips, then hesitated. "You been before? What with...your sister."
I paused, then frowned at the sudden appearance of the cigarette. "Wait, how did you get that—"
"I got talents."
I relented at that dismissal. I sighed. "I've only been to Manhattan, where my sister works. Although right now, she should be abroad in Europe. I think. I don't know."
Angel paused. "Shit, sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up."
I shrugged that off, but the residue stuck uncomfortably to my skin like drying syrup. "It's fine. Doesn't really matter anymore." Although is sounded only half like truth and more like reassurance. "Do you want to go?"
He held the cigarette between his fingers and hummed. "Yeah. Or, I mean, maybe I'm just hungry."
"You've been before, right?"
Angel nodded carefully. "Yeah, way back." He snorted. "Guess New York is a vault for both of us."
I elbowed him, then frowned. "Is it really?"
"No, no. I haven't been back for so long, I've forgotten most of it anyway." He tugged at his hoodie collar. "I mean, I guess I just figured maybe by going back differently would be a..." Angel swayed the perched cigarette to and fro. "Makeover?"
"A makeover?"
"Yeah. Something newer. A makeover of New York." He laughed to himself. His hand rested on the steering wheel. The edge of his palm was silver with graphite. "Is that stupid?"
I shook my head. "No. It's actually not a bad idea. We've been a lot of places we've never really been." I snagged the cigarette away, stubbing it out in his Coke. "We should go one place we have been."
Angel smiled. He ruffled my hair. "Valid point, my good man." He turned the key. The engine rumbled alive. "New York or bust."
A smile wormed its way onto my face. "New York or bust."
He reached over to hold my hand, and laughed into the October wind.
___________________________________
"Hello, Haruki," she said. "I'm Katherine Bentivegna, I'm a detective. You can call me Kat, though." She gestured at the older woman standing adjacent to her. "This is my partner, May. We're here to talk to you about something."
I stared at her. My hands squeezed tight in my lap, nails sinking through my palms. The fluorescent lights of the principal's office made our outlines stark and terribly three-dimensional.
I said, "Who are you?" Which meant more of why is someone who is you here talking to someone who is me?
She sat down on the desk. "You're not in trouble," she assured. "We're just trying to get details sorted."
I remained quiet.
Kat pulled up a chair beside me. She sat down, eye-level with me, looking as friendly as a mace.
"I know this seems sort of intimidating. I'm sorry for that. We're gonna record this and take some notes though, okay? Just to have an exact record of everything we need."
"Why?" I asked. "What's going on?"
Kat considered herself for a few moments before starting with, "Do you know Sharon Walsh?"
Sharon Walsh was a criminally careless sophomore who really should have been a junior had she not repeatedly failed graduating grades every year. She had a talent for finding the worst hair bleach money could buy and building the world's best tolerance to any and all substances by age sixteen. I was a freshman at the time, but we shared the same math class, meaning I was unfortunate enough to discover all of these details in the first place.
I shrugged. "Sort of. I guess. We talk in math class sometimes. Why?"
"Do you remember her telling you anything about a party happening last Friday on the third?"
I scrunched my brows. "Oh, um, yes. I think so. She goes to a lot of parties."
"Specifically last Friday."
"I think she said she was going to one a guy was hosting."
"Did she say if she intended to take any substances with her? Pills, drinks, etcetera?"
There was a shorter list of times Sharon didn't intend to take substances with her, but I still said, "She mentioned there would be a lot of 'good stuff' at the party."
"Good stuff?"
"That's all she said to me. No specifics."
May raised a brow. "Does she normally take substances? At school or at other parties?"
"I've never been to any parties she's been at. People say she takes stuff but I've never seen her," I said. "I'm sorry, but why am I being asked these things?"
"Whose party did she say she was going to?" Kat asked.
I chewed the inside of my cheek. "I want to know what this is about."
"All of this remains completely confidential, Haruki," she assured. "We're just trying to keep you kids safe."
"What? Why? Did she do something?"
"Was the party she was going to Rae Lee's party?" May rolled on, ignoring me.
"I think so. What is this about?"
Kat sighed, resting her hands in front of her. "We found several kids with unauthorized sleeping pills on campus trying to sell them to each other or online, and we're starting to trace them back to her. We just need as much evidence to make sure we're targeting the right person."
I blinked. Drug busts and alcohol incidents were nothing new in any high school, but it was the first time I'd ever been remotely involved in one. Had I known better, I would have said less. Had I known what I did three months later, had I known what I did two years later, I would have run out the door and never looked back.
But all I did was, "Well, that's all I know. I'm sorry."
She smiled. "No, no. That's helpful. Thank you." She stood and took my hand to shake. "However, it's important you not tell too many people about this interview, okay? We're still sifting."
I nodded. "Of course."
"Thank you, Haruki.
I closed the door without another thought.
"Dude, I'm never doing drugs."
I frowned as Jade settled next to me, three months after Bentivegna had left the case behind.
"What?" I said.
"Did you hear?" she said. "About the kid that overdosed?"
My brows shot up. "No. Are they okay?"
"I don't know. I didn't get his name. But he's in our grade, apparently. Not a lot of people know the details though, like, not even what he overdosed on." She shook her head. "Still, though. I heard he's friend with Rae."
The name shuddered in my distant memory. "Rae...Lee?"
She nodded. "Yeah. You know him? Oh, my God, do you know what happened?"
I shook my head. "No."
"Well, I think it's sad. I hope he's okay. Those stories are alway so sad. I mean, how bad can it get that you consider doing that to yourself?" Jade made a face. "I wonder who he was. Maybe I'll ask Maia, she might know."
I could only listen in silence, letting the conversation die under the hands of eight AM trigonometry as we were left to speculating rumors with increasingly ridiculous plotlines as the only answers.
How bad can it get?
I tugged at the fabric of my sleeves. My phone buzzed in my pocket.
10:31 AM - Janet Hwang
Hello, Haruki. I just want to follow up on your 3PM private this Saturday. Are you still—
I shut it off, and closed my eyes.
You have no idea.
We never spoke of him again. We never learned his name. And I never knew more than fluorescent lights and Bentivegna's inky, forgotten notes.
It took me two years, a wrong phone call, and a boy full of nightmares for me to find out.
__________________________
I lied across the bed, eyes closed. New York whistled from out the window. I waited for my exigence.
The drive had taken longer than expected what with our lack of map experience once again guiding us in a few stray directions before we could finally redirect ourselves back en route to the actual location. So we entered New York City at around nine, and found the cheapest hotel we could at ten. Despite my insistence.
("Nothing wrong with a motel," I said as we took the elevator up.
Angel shrugged. "If we're gonna make some better memories, might as well do it without bedbugs."
"There were bedbugs before?"
"Hey, it's our level," Angel said, hurrying out.)
A creak and a dip of the mattress made me open my eyes. Angel looked down from above, brow raised.
"Don't tell me you're gonna sleep," he said.
I shook my head. "Just thinking. It's New York, there's a lot to do."
"Then we should go do them."
"You're antsy."
"Call it caffeine."
"You'll keel over with all that coffee."
"Ah, you're right. Oh, God, I can feel it coming on now."
"Don't fall on me—"
Angel laughed, collapsing over me and narrowly avoiding crashing his nose into mine. I bat him away.
"You're gonna crush me!" I snapped.
"Ow! That's my kneecap."
"That's your elbow."
"Elbowcap then." I hissed something back and he clicked his tongue. "Joke's on you, I don't speak Japanese."
"I can translate."
"Ignorance is bliss. Ah, this is comfy. Stop hitting my elbowcap, you'll dislocate something with all that effort. Ow. That's my fibula."
"For God's sake, take an anatomy class," I scoffed.
He frowned. "I swear this is the fibula."
"Stop pointing at your shoulder." I sat up. Angel pushed my hair over my eyes as he followed, snickering.
I glared. "Where are you going?" I asked as he pulled on the pink jacket and adjusted his Camp Cowbell hoodie underneath it.
"Probably hell," he said. "But as of right now, to get a sandwich."
I slid my hands into the cheap gloves and ignored the sting of the threads catching on my hangnails. "A sandwich?"
"New York pastrami," he explained.
"It's ten thirty."
"Healthy protein then." He took my hand to tug me towards the door. "Come on."
I curled my fingers into his and let him drag me out of the hotel room, nothing but New York to see us on the other side.
New York was a lot like the ocean, in its waves of people, its constant undercurrents, and its ostensible endlessness.
For every one street there were three corners, and for every three corners there were five streets, and for every five streets there were a thousand places to go. People flooded the squares like birds to an open-door bakery, and to hear yourself think would've been a miracle over all the hustle of strangers, screams of city cars, monumental heights of the buildings. Windows welcomed insight into the innards of discordant office buildings, impatient eateries, work-in-progress missions, the occasional pungent coffee shop. It bent in too many directions with every passing person's footsteps, rumbled with taxi tires or underground trains or the bullet ricochets of everyday conversation.
New York breathed in youth and exhaled dreams, swallowed down wonders and spat out hopes, pulsated with an overactive heartbeat. You did not take a bite of New York and leave. New York consumed you whole and left you to dream of having a piece of it again.
All that to say, it was beautiful.
I'd only ever ventured to Manhattan and SoHo, where Rika did her work in silver-tongued buildings and enclosed white walls. But here, in the grit and bite of the city, I could barely remember it. Frankly, I didn't mind forgetting.
That and the pastrami.
Angel leaned against a metal pole beside the neon-lit deli, whose red letters were the same color as the meat they served. He pointed at his half of the sandwich. "This is why I could never be vegetarian."
I nodded, swallowing the salty mouthful of spiced beef. "True."
"Can you marry a sandwich?" He wiped his mouth. "I think I'm content to marry a sandwich."
"Then stop eating your bride," I laughed. The cold morning air let it escape in puffs of ghostly white. "What do we do after this?"
"Haru, Haru, Haru. Always looking for the next thing to do," he said. "How do you feel about a brunch dessert?"
Maybe the voracious young male appetite was awakening in me, because I said, "Like what?"
"The Statue of Liberty," he said, taking another massive bite of the sandwich. "But also cronuts."
"Cronuts?"
He gaped. "Don't tell me you don't know what cronuts are."
"Corn donuts?"
"We have to break up."
"Calm down," I snapped. "What are they then?"
"A croissant and a donut and an angel," he said, then added, "Not me. A general angel."
"I'd never mistake you for a general angel." I finished my half, tossing the wrapper. "It's actually ironic."
"What?"
"Your name. It's like a misnomer."
He smiled brightly. "Isn't it poetic?"
"It's ironic."
"There's iron in human blood." When I just gaped, he said, "Okay, well, you told me to take an anatomy class." He slung an arm over my shoulders, shielding off the autumn chill that wafted through the amber leaves hanging from every available tree. "For that, I'll take the boat myself."
"What boat?"
He handed his phone to me. I peered down. A digital ticket blazed on the screen.
I stared. "How did you even—"
Angel turned a corner and plucked the device back. "The hotel had free Wi-Fi. It was the cheapest thing I could find on short notice. It's at twelve, so I figure we can grab the cronuts and head there."
"Walking?" I exclaimed. "That whole way?"
He grinned like starlight and winked.
"Let's grab the cronuts, yeah?" he said.
The streets rolled on forever.
"The hell is rosemary?"
I shook my head. "I'm gonna pretend you're kidding."
We stood in the elongated line of the bakery, the entire place—with its wall-length windows and narrow entryway, tables filled to the brim with pleased patrons, golden light dripping from the ceiling—practically bleeding with New York respect.
Angel leaned on my shoulder. "Hey, when you make your bakery," he said, "let me live in the back."
I burst with a laugh. "What?
"Yeah, I'll just make a little bed under the kitchen vents. Like Gordon Potter." I raised a brow. "You know?" he said. "Like a Harry Potter staircase situation but with the food enthusiasm of Gordon Ramsey."
"You're something," I said. "And you'll set something on fire."
"So you'll consider it?"
I pushed his face away. "Crazy."
"Ah, only for you," he said, running his hands through my hair. "But for real. I can see you doing something like this. Look at all those delicate goods." I peered around the person in front of me. The windows glowed with fastidious glazed and baked arrangements. "Definitely up your alley."
Swirling sugared breads, elevated cream cakes, full moon cookies, dome-puffed pastries, rows on rows of gold-leafed/chocolate painted/fruit-adorned cronuts. The scents in the air alone were enough to make me float. Down to the reflections in the glass, it was most entirely my alley.
"Maybe," I murmured.
"Tell me you're serious."
I glanced to him. "What?"
"Tell me you're serious," he said again. "That you'll take some lucky city by storm with Cloud Bakery."
I cocked my head. "Who said I'm calling it that?"
"Uh, me. I'm a pro at naming things," he said. "You should see your contact name history."
"Wait, what."
"Or a solemn type. The Haru."
"Stop that."
He laughed, clear and crisp. "I try." Angel nudged me. "But seriously."
I hummed. "I don't know if I'd ever get this good."
"Eh, what's a pan o'chocolate anyway?"
"Pain au chocolat."
"Same thing. Seriously." He gestured at the displays. "I think you could do even better."
I smiled as we finally came fully face to face with the endless avenues of desserts. How was it possible; to live in real time inside a dream and not explode with it?
I leaned over to see the almond croissants. Angel bent down, eye level with me.
I said, nearly inaudible, "Do you think so?"
"Think what?"
"That I could make this," I whispered. "Any of this."
Angel's face reflected back at me. He nudged me, and said, "All of it."
"Hi," an employee chirped. "How may I help you two?"
I wanted nothing more than to believe him.
And Angel, unwavering and unmatched, ocean blue and starstruck, was simply impossible to not believe in.
"Okay, two wives," Angel said. "The pastrami, and this."
The ever-changing cronut flavors brought us to the strange find of honey rosemary and fig, fragrant and sweetened by snowy sugar. I didn't even bother to correct him, mostly because he was valid.
"It is good," I admitted. "Maybe too good. You think they put something in it?"
"Cocaine and Jesus, maybe," he said.
I tossed my head back in the laugh. "I was thinking butter."
"Same thing." He dusted off the sugar. "God bless New York. This is way better than corn."
"Anything is better than expired corn, I'd think," I said.
"A man's gotta eat." He rested his cheek on his hand. "You can thank me for my genius."
I took another bite from the delicacy. "It's eleven right now. The place to meet the boat is probably at least an hour and a half away." I turned my gaze on him. "What's your genius for that?"
"Icy," he murmured. "And I have a plan for that."
"What plan?"
"One word. Subway."
"Subway?"
"Might as well use all main ways of New York travel. Walking, subway, taxi. It's a rite of passage. I think. I never got past the third episode of Sex and the City."
"What train do we take?" I asked.
He shrugged. "You've been to New York, I thought you'd know."
"I never rode the subway. My mom always thought we'd get mugged."
"I see that. I'd mug you."
"What."
"It can't be that hard to figure it out," he said, ignoring that. "It's just a train system, right? We'll be fine."
I popped the last of the cronut into my mouth and said, "Sure."
We were not fine.
"It's the...V train," he said. "I'm, like, sixty percent sure it's the V train."
"That's a D," I said. "As in, you're currently getting a D in subway jargon."
"Hey, hey, I got us here!" he protested, gesturing around at the station we'd walked into from the last train. "I'd say I'm getting us a solid C right now."
"I don't think there even is a V train."
"Okay, well, if you're so fluent, then you tell me." He pushed the map at me, a rainbow of train routes staring back. When I was quiet, he said, "Exactly."
"Shut up, let me think," I snapped. "I think it's the N train."
"There's an N train?"
"Were you reading this upside down?"
He paused. "I thought the letter print was just old and smudged, to be honest."
I shook my head. "I think it's the N train."
"When is that coming?"
"Um."
"What's 'um'?"
"'Um' is let me think about it!"
"Jeez, you're snippy."
"You've been reading this upside down for ten minutes."
"I think the important part is the lesson we learn at the end of the day."
I sighed. "I'm pretty sure it's the N train."
"I mean, how far is V from N?"
"There is no V train."
"You know, you've become very judgmental about your geography. Your ego is, like, high as Colorado."
"Colorado is below us, Angel."
"That's very New York supremacist of you."
"Please stop talking while I still have some faith left in your brain."
He frowned around the station. "There's gotta be a V train somewhere." He snagged the map. "Let me see this."
"Hey! Give me that! What if we miss the train?"
"Aw, can't reach it? Come on, jump a little, I believe in you. Ow! Did you just kick me?"
I tugged the map back. "You're horrible."
"You're violent," he murmured, and rested his chin atop my head.
"Stop that."
"Stop what? Soft hair makes a good headrest."
"I'll kill you."
"With your tiny bones? Oomph! That's my diaphragm."
"That's your shin."
He laughed and wrapped his arms around my waist, still content to use me as his so-called headrest.
He said, "So when's the train coming?"
_____________________________
"When you came here," Angel said, leaning against the black railing of the checkerboard boat, "did you like it?"
I considered that. The harbor stretched out in the twinkling sunlight, coming in through spotty fragments, breaking through the sky's silver, sprinkling the seas. The boat creaked and rocked, trying to get comfortable on the waters. Wind whispered in my ears, through my hair.
I pulled off one of my gloves and reached over the rails to feel it curl around my palm. It found its way underneath my jacket to make me shiver.
"I guess so," I said. "I feel like I can't really say anything about it because I haven't actually seen it."
Angel hummed. "What about me?"
I turned to him. "What?"
"When you first met me," he asked, quirking a smile. "What did you think?"
I squinted. "Careless, I guess."
"Hm, good judgment."
"Not really." The boat creaked along the edges of New York Harbor. A faint echo of the guide's voice tingled the air but it felt so distant with Angel's gaze focused in on me. "I don't think I was right."
"No? Sounds right."
"You're not careless."
In the distance, a silhouette raised a torched toast to us.
Our shoulders pushed against each other. "I thought you were totally uptight," he said.
"Good judgment."
"Not really."
I smiled. "Why? I sort of am."
"Well, yeah," he admitted. "But not always. Maybe sixty eight percent of the time."
"What's the other thirty two?" I laughed.
He grinned out the corner of his eye. "This."
I elbowed him. "That means I get an F."
"You get an A. Or a V."
"Stop."
He chuckled. "I'm serious, though. You're just serious. But I like that. Keeps me balanced," he said. "God knows I need more anchorage in my life."
"You're acting like you're a lost soul."
"Without you, maybe." I didn't know if the earnestness of that scared or intrigued me.
"And coming up, the highlight of our trip here, Lady Liberty herself!" the guide called.
We looked up just as the figure finally came into view, like a green light emerging from the fog. The sculpture stared upwards at nothing, unbothered by anything or anyone, free in the wind.
"You always give me credit," I murmured to Angel. "What about you?"
"I declared myself a lost cause years ago."
"You're not," I said. Angel shrugged. I elbowed him. "You aren't a lost cause."
"I don't really have much to back me up."
"Your art," I said. "You."
"Me?" he said, like the idea was laughable.
"You," I repeated. "I know I thought you were careless, but that's because I was cocky. I think you're..."
"Crazy?"
"Free." I nodded. "You always seemed so...free."
Angel looked away from the green god to face me. "More than you?"
"It was never really my life, you know? Every time someone explained why I was doing something, it was always about what they thought was best." I pursed my lips. "Actually, you were the only person who ever asked me if I liked violin." A bitter laugh escaped me. "And you cared about what I thought or what I wanted just because. I'd never really done anything just because."
"Was it weird?"
"It's different," I said.
"What is?"
I held Angel's gaze, his brown eyes like the sun.
"Living," I said.
The statue began to flee from us in a slow, shrinking rhythm. Angel stared at me either in wonderment or disbelief or confusion or all three. But he still looked at me above all, and it was the strangest thing to be seen.
I grasped his hand in mine against all better judgment. Screw better judgment. I was so tired of better.
"You," he said, "are a phenomenon."
It might have been the greatest thing to be seen by Angel Young.
________________________________
"We're not getting up there unless we King Kong it."
I snorted. "You'll be up there by next December."
"I'll send you a postcard." Angel took a step to cross and I yanked him back.
The Empire State Building was an inarguable statement piece of the New York collection. You could not enter New York and exit without saying you at least crossed its path. So, to placate our tight budget, we were left to admire from afar. Our necks threatened to crack beneath the pressure of how far we craned them up, but still, we gave a good effort.
"I bet we could scale it," Angel said, nodding.
"You'd never get past the second floor."
"You'd never get past the first."
Angel gave me a sad smile. "Sorry that we can't go all the way up," he sighed.
"Don't be," I said with a grin. "I actually like it better down here."
"Really?"
I nodded. "I think it makes you appreciate the building more when you see all of it rather than being all the way on top."
"Humbling?"
"Yes. Humbling," I agreed. "Did you ever go here? When you visited New York?"
Angel paused. "No. Or if I did, I don't remember." He let his gaze drop back down to the sidewalks. "It was a while ago."
I pursed my lips. "Did you want to go here first?"
He frowned. The wind sang and called. The Empire State Building listened.
"What do you mean?"
"Before San Francisco," I explained. "You said your mom went to school here. Did you ever want to be here instead?"
Angel considered me for a long minute, gaze full of something unreadable and blurry. I waited beneath the weight of it, all the questions lodged in my throat.
"I don't know," he decided on. "I guess I wanted to be a lot of places instead." Of?
How could you know so much and so little about someone at the same time?
Where are you?
I said, "Where do you wanna go now?"
New York pulsed beneath my feet, the winds pulling the city up by the roots. Angel reached over, pushing my hair back into place after a hard gust. His fingers smelled like ash and sugar.
He leaned down and said, "Where do you wanna go?"
I said, "Anywhere."
"Everywhere," he said.
I figured if anyone could do both, it was probably him.
He spun around and opened his arms up. "I say this building is first."
"Gonna climb it?" I asked.
"Yeah, something like that." He linked his arm with mine and hauled me away. "But you need sustenance for that."
"Your stomach is endless."
"You don't wanna share a pretzel, that's fine by me."
"I never said that."
He ruffled my hair. "Sucker."
"Shut up."
When we split it between ourselves, our bench cold but the dough warm in our hands, Angel said, "Hey, put this on your bakery menu."
"Pretzels aren't in bakeries."
"Then be the first."
We laughed and laughed.
The city breathed out dreams.
"I'll work on it," I said.
_________________________________
We stood at the bottom of the stone steps, a temple displayed before us in red-bannered, white-pillared, Gothic glory. Its worship of choice: art, and art alone.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art—The Met, to be more ubiquitous—was a place you only ever left underwhelmed or overwhelmed, never in between. Generally, museums were only for certain types of people; the kinds with constantly-awake brains and night affinities, old tote bags or silver mirrors, painted eyes and a dozen half-empty sketchbooks, vintage collections and palette-prone Instagrams.
We were not that. But lucky for us, though museums weren't for us, art was.
All that to say: we went inside.
"You've been here," I said, not really a question.
Angel climbed the steps like walking on nails. He said, "Yeah. Once with my mom."
He didn't say more. I didn't ask.
In every piece, painting, and sculpture, I searched for what he wanted to say.
Angel surveyed the halls and stairwells, glass cases and strolling strangers. Cream walls encased us under stars of light. There was so much that there was no direction at all.
I watched his face, but it was perfectly blank, eyes trained on the vastness.
I considered the map only once before tucking it away. My footsteps echoed like symphonies.
"Where are we going?" he asked behind me.
I shrugged. "Don't know yet."
I don't know
It was criminal not to embrace those words.
We were staring up at a statue of Dionysus when Angel said, "I came here when I was ten, I think."
I glanced up at him. He stared into the marble eyes of the god, face still unreadable, gloved hands in his pockets. I said, "Really?"
"We came here, my family," he explained.
"Did you like it?" I gestured around. "New York, that is."
"I think so," he said, and chewed his lip. "I can't remember that much." How long ago?
I knew so little and so much. Where are you?
"Was your mom an artist?" I asked.
"No, just business," he said. "She just liked art."
"Did she like your art?"
A long moment passed. "I don't know," he murmured.
A trio of ivory flutes, delicate as snow and in the peak of mint condition, bled cultured refinement and an untouchability that everything beautiful from the eighteenth century held from their place in on the velvet.
Angel said, "If you didn't have to play violin, what would you have played?"
I furrowed my brows. The flutes twinkled.
"Anything?" I asked, and he nodded. I cocked my head. "Piano."
"What?" he laughed. "Asian parents got mad about piano?"
"No, no. They would've been happy with either, probably. But I didn't want to do it."
"Why not?"
"I actually liked piano," I said. "I didn't want to risk having it ruined." I sighed. "Although now, I've sort of lost the opportunity."
"Never too late."
"Why did you stop piano?"
He shrugged. "My teacher left," he said. "Although, I sort of wish I'd kept it up. It might've kept my brain from rotting."
"I don't think your brain rots from that," I said.
"Yeah, that might've been all the nicotine," he snorted.
"I told you not to do that. Bad for your lungs."
He turned on his heel. "Guess I have a thing for bad habits."
I fell into step beside him, the flutes in our wake. "You should try piano again."
He gave me a strange smile, and reached down. His fingers slid through mine, heartbeats in our palms.
"Maybe we'll try later," he said.
We.
I held it tight.
Four figures were painted in shadows within the forest. The light was severe on them, and darkness cut into the background like it was carved in by a knife.
"It's pretty," I said. "The light and dark of it. Like a contrast."
"Chiaroscuro."
I glanced up at him. He tilted his chin at the painting. "That is."
"What's that?"
"What you said," he replied. "The light and dark."
"Where'd you learn that?" I asked.
He paused, eyes swallowed by the painting's reflection. "My mom."
"You two were close," I said, not quite a question.
Angel, always effervescent and kinetic, stood like stone and a thousand miles away from me.
"Yeah," he murmured.
"Do you miss her?"
A long silence echoed against the exhibit walls. His eyes disappeared into the shadows of the painting, into somewhere I couldn't follow.
"I don't know," he said.
I didn't ask him to explain, and he didn't opt to, nothing but the stiffness of unspoken words between us.
Maybe I didn't need him to, because with or without his explanation, I think I knew what he meant.
"I'll make a bakery if you paint the decor," I said.
Angel looked up from Van Gogh's straw hat portrait. His lips quirked up.
"You probably don't want me doing that," he replied.
"Why not? You're good."
"You've barely seen it."
"I've seen a good amount," I murmured. "Why don't you draw more?"
"You always ask that."
"Because you're good and you never think you are."
He snorted. "So much faith." Angel patted my head. "What would I paint?"
"Anything. What's there not to paint?"
"Two artists," he said, and clicked his tongue. "Nah. Doesn't work."
"Why not?"
He opened, then closed his mouth, waving it away. "Anyway, there's nothing to paint."
I crossed my arms. "Then there goes the bakery."
"Whoa, you're holding the bakery hostage?"
"Yes."
He rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll paint you one photo and that's it."
"That's it?"
"Yeah. It'll be a cat doodle."
I waved him off and he laughed. "Give your art more credit," I said.
Angel faltered, face flickering. Then, just like that, it was gone and replaced with an easy expression. He grabbed my hand to kiss my knuckles.
"Well, if Haruki Nakamura says so, I definitely should," he said. We turned away from the painting. "Just focus on getting those pretzels on your menu," he said.
As our footsteps faded, my unanswered questions and Van Gogh dissipated into our wake.
______________________________
It went:
October had taken Central Park by full force, wrapping it in ribbons of fall. No leaf had been left green, and whatever weaker ones that couldn't hold their own against the chilly winds blowed into the pathways of unsuspecting New Yorkers.
I breathed in the earthy air. "This is nice," I said.
"Cold," Angel added. "But yeah. It is." He pushed my bangs away, face bright, callouses soft on my temple. "This is nice."
It felt like living a future memory.
It went:
"My sister told me she used to walk up and down the big mountain back in Yoshino," I said. The streets screeched into the air, heavy with earth and sound. "Especially in spring."
"I bet it was pretty. I used to wanna visit Japan when I was younger."
"So you traveled a lot as a kid?"
"I guess so," he said. "But I think we only went to Korea and New York, because my parents knew it well."
"Is Korea nice?"
He smiled. "Yeah. We went to Seoul and Incheon."
I smiled. "I've always wanted to go to Korea."
"Well," he said, turning to quirk a crooked grin. "We'll have to take each other." He leaned on my shoulder. "They got those rolls over there, right?"
"They probably have much better ones."
"Guess we have to find out." He plucked the subway map from my back pocket. "I bet the J train goes there."
"There's no J train."
"Or maybe it's an I."
"Did you ever get your eyes checked?"
"You know, I think as long as I can make out seventy percent of the world, the other thirty fills itself in."
"Give me the map."
He held it above my head. "Sure. Here."
I stepped on his foot and he yelped as I reached up to snatch it back. He gawked.
"Goblin," he whispered.
"You were reading the pizza advertisement."
"Spicy goblin." He paused. "Wait, pizza?"
It went:
"Have you only ever been to Yoshino?"
We walked beneath the scope of the collaged city, layers upon layers of glued paper buildings or metallic-painted windows, ushering us into its unending pages. I figured I liked it: being lost.
"My mom said we went to Tokyo once," I replied. "But I don't remember it."
"Would you want to go? To Tokyo, that is."
I shrugged. We crossed streets, turned corners.
"I'd like to go back to Japan in general," I admitted. "There weren't a lot of Japanese kids at our school or our church. There's something a little comforting, I guess, about going somewhere with more people you feel similar to."
He hummed. "What do you think you'd be doing now if you'd stayed in Japan?"
I shrugged. "Probably working for my family, helping my grandparents out."
"Preferable?"
"Different," I said. "Just different."
Angel said, "Different's good."
"Sometimes."
He bumped my shoulder with his and gestured between us. "Hey, exhibit A," he said.
"Gross," I said.
"It's the city of love."
"That's Paris."
"It's the US capitol of love."
"The US capitol is Washington DC."
"You're so cruel sometimes."
I laughed. "Sometimes."
It went:
"Good God," Angel said. "I'm about to become a Mormon with all these foods I gotta marry."
"Don't say that," I said, and took another bite of my slice. "But this is really good."
"When we get heart failure in December," he said. "I hope you know I'll have regretted nothing."
I smiled, then, "What about you?" I asked.
"What about me?" he asked between a mouthful of cheese and dough.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," I said, tossing him napkins. "Is there any other city in Korea you want to go to?"
"Want? Present tense?"
"Do you ever wanna go back?"
He hesitated. Then chowed down the last of his crust and frowned. "Dunno," he said. "It's like a pipe dream."
"Why?"
"Me and what money?" he snorted. "I can't drive to Korea, although even if I could, the gas prices alone would kill me." He shook his head. "Drive across an ocean? In this economy?"
"But if you could."
He hummed. "Jeju."
I said, "Next stop?"
Angel stared at me, then laughed into the open air.
"Sure, man," he said. "Next stop."
It went:
"Are you okay?"
Angel swiveled his head to me. "Huh?"
"Is something wrong with your phone?" I asked.
He pursed his lips. "Uh, no, sorry. Spam call."
"Call?"
"Yeah, sorry." He shoved his hands into his pockets. His eyes darted and searched for something. "It was just weird. Anyway, that was dinner, so where are we going now?"
I opened my mouth to push but backed out at the last second. Maybe poking the beast in the middle of a crowded New York street wasn't the best call on my judgment.
So I cleared my throat, content to distract myself alongside him. "I don't know. What time is it?"
"Um, 5:17."
I frowned. "Only? I thought time would go faster here," I murmured.
"Wanna just walk?" he said, already going ahead of me. "See where we can make it?"
"Sure, I guess—hey, wait."
"Keep up, Haru," he called over his shoulder and laughed.
I watched him turn his head forward, and the smile disintegrate with it.
My feet felt heavier.
It went:
Times Square at night was akin to, as best as I can describe it, a modern cyber Wonderland.
It would be criminal to be anything less than in awe of the display that the light-bursting, psychedelic, rapidly kinetic, heat-pulsing, heart-pounding, center stage of New York was. It was as if someone stole every star in the sky and pasted them on Olympian skyscrapers or littered them across the expanse of the endless streets. Billboards of neon influences and bedazzled achievements filled any square inch of open space. Letters spelled out their name, your name, their words, your response. People were strangers were gods. Gods were people were strangers. It made even the sun and moon bow.
Succinctly: it was beautiful.
I spent my whole life without this, I thought. I could've spent my whole life without this.
Over and over again, I wondered how I ever survived so long without living.
"Holy shit," Angel cackled. "This is...wow, this is like if LSD was a place."
I tired to swallow down every last piece. "It's amazing."
"Hell yeah." He leaned on my back, mouth agape. "I don't even care if I lose my eyesight."
I turned, grabbed his hand, and pulled him through the crowds.
"Where are we going?" he called.
The smile on my face consumed me.
"Anywhere!" I yelled.
It went:
"I didn't think I needed this many M&Ms till now," Angel said.
"We're definitely gonna have heart failure," I said. "Why did you get a one pound bag of blue?"
"Don't be racist, Haru." He dropped some onto his tongue. "And it's all for the inevitable blue tongue. Who wants an orange or red tongue? Or a green tongue?"
"I like the green ones."
"For that, no more M&Ms for you."
"How is that fair?"
"I'll feed them to you if you're nice."
"I'll buy a green one and mix them into yours."
"Cruel goblin." He wrapped me under his arm and shoved the bag at me. "But a genius goblin."
I smiled, popping the blue candy into my mouth.
It went:
"Fuck me sideways," Angel breathed, grabbing my arm to stop me in my tracks. "Is that fucking Captain America?"
I glanced over at where he was staring, the small group of posing cosplayers gathering around passing tourists for novelty photos. I raised a brow.
"Captain America is overrated," I said.
"Eat my foot. He is not."
"Eat your what—"
"Never disrespect the Captain," he said. "Plus he's hot."
"He looks like he could sell you a car," I argued.
"I'd buy a car from that man," Angel stated, nodding. "I'd buy a toy car. I'd buy a breath of air. I'd buy a car and then as my form of payment, fully give myself to his wonderful hands."
I closed my eyes. "Stop. Why do you say these things aloud."
"You think Black Widow is there too?" he said, peering over. "If so, double car payments."
"No. What? No. Stop being bisexual."
"You sound like the Catholics," he said. "Come on."
Faux Captain America did indeed still look like he could sell me a car but Angel was still blindly head over heels, shaking his hand for a minute too long and staring a little too intently at it.
"A good citizen then," the man boomed, nodding the way pseudo-superhero car salesmen do. "You do your community well?"
"I can do a lot of things well," Angel said, and winked.
I buried my face in my hands.
Black Widow was there, as it turned out. The situation did not improve.
"I like your suit," Angel said.
"I like your cow," she replied, gesturing at the MOO OR BE MOOED emblem on his hoodie.
"Do you think it's cute?" he asked.
"If you're asking if I think you're cute, you look underage."
"Asian don't raisin. It's that natural youthful glow, you see," he replied, beaming. "I'm very mature for my age."
She raised a brow. "With a cow hoodie?"
"I'm cultured like that. Nice boots."
"Thanks. They can kill a man."
"Even better."
She looked at me. "Is he drunk?"
"He was dropped as a baby," I said, yanking him away. "Multiple times. Two-story house, too."
Angel said, "So, Captain—"
"Let's just take the photo, you two, yeah?" the man hurried, rushing to my other side and holding up my phone for the quickest of selfies.
Angel said, "But—"
They said, "No."
So I shoved a five into each of their hands, and bolted.
If I'd ever ran faster than when I ran all the way down the Times Square streets that day, Angel cackling behind me and the lights glowing above, I could never tell you.
It went:
"Angel."
He raised his brows. "Hm? If you're gonna keep lecturing me about my lack of ethics and manners towards street cosplayers, I've thoroughly learned my lesson. Mostly. Hey, you think they're on Yelp?"
"Angel."
"Admit it. That suit did him wonders."
"Angel."
"Her, too. Thighs, you know? That's my whole explanation right there for you."
I yanked his sleeve. "Angel."
"What, what?" He finally turned his gaze towards where mine was locked.
I pointed up. "Look."
In golden lights, blazing like the sun itself, read the great words of FAMOUS CHEESECAKE above a glowing restaurant, blooming with burgers, fries, shakes, and as promised, lots of cheesecake.
Angel's jaw dropped. "Sweet mother."
"I guess it is only right we get New York cheesecake in New York, right?" I laughed. "Let me see what their prices are—hey!"
If I'd ever seen Angel run faster than he did then, knocking over every available stranger in his way, I could never tell you that either.
It went:
"Fuck polygamy," Angel said. "I give all my vows to this one right here."
I swallowed my bite. "I have to admit, I think this is the best we've had yet."
"'Think'? I know," he pushed. "Fuck it, Haru. I'll die happy right here, right now."
I smiled. He cut into the slice.
"Hey," he said. "I got a real question."
"Yes, I think they'll file a restraining order against you," I said. "But no, don't think too much about it yet."
He paused. "Not my question, but way to discourage a guy."
I laughed. "Sorry. What is it?"
"When you open your bakery," he said.
"If, that's completely an if—"
"When you open your bakery," he continued, stabbing his fork at me. "Will you have cheesecake?"
"That's not a real question," I scoffed. "That's you trying to get more cheesecake."
"You would be floored at how little cheesecake there is in our area, Haru." He wagged his finger. "This is important. I need to know."
"Why?"
"So I can know whether we'll have a fight or not."
I stuffed another forkful of fluffy white cream cheese into my mouth and rested my cheek on my hand. "What makes you so sure?" I asked.
He frowned. "That we'll have a fight? Survival of the cheesecake bloodline, obviously."
"No, no. I mean, that we'll have a fight in the first place."
He tilted his head. "What do you mean?"
I hesitated. The October cold pushed icy spikes into my skin.
"Never mind," I said. "It's nothing."
"What? Come on, tell me."
"No."
"Just tell me."
"I'll answer if you answer me about the paintings."
He faltered, then flicked me away. "Eh, hard bargain."
"Just eat your cheesecake and don't harass any more unsuspecting cosplayers."
He quirked a brow, but humored me enough to take another forkful of the cheesecake. He pointed at the remains. "Have the last bite."
I frowned. "No. It's your obsession, you eat it."
"Yeah, but you're the one who has to take notes," he said. "For when you put it on your menu. Which you definitely need to."
I blinked at him. Then, lifted my fork, splitting it down the middle.
"Note taken," I said, and watched him beam beneath the night and Times Square stars.
It went:
Angel emerged from the bathroom, scrubbing at his hair with the towel, sweats low on his hips, with Sailor Moon smiling faded in the mixed moonlight and dim hotel lamps. Water dripped over his temples, his forehead, running over the last remnants of his faded freckles.
I'd miss them.
He sat down at the foot of where I lay on the bed, The Catcher in the Rye a fourth finished in my hands.
"How's that?" he asked.
"Interesting," I said. "Sort of."
He smiled. "Hey, we gotta steal this shampoo for sure. It actually smells sort of good."
I nodded, pushing back my own damp waves. New York raged on beyond our windows in a distant thrum.
I sat up. "Today was fun."
"Today—" Angel grasped my hand to pull me closer towards him. "—was fucking great."
My lips traveled upwards against my will. "Really?"
"Well, mostly everything is great with you, but add New York and cheesecake to it and you're bordering on paradise." He nodded. "I can't even care that we're slowly going broke."
"Wait, we are?"
"I'm kidding. Somewhat. Technically, if we tried to genuinely live on our own, we would've been broke from the start." He lied down across my lap with his head on my legs. "But that's a later problem."
I hummed, brow furrowing. He looked up at me.
"Stop worrying," he said.
"Not worrying. I'm just thinking."
"About?"
"I don't know. A lot of things."
"Don't think."
"You always say that."
He hauled himself up to sit side by side with me. "And it works every time. Most of the time."
Black waves fell over his forehead and blocked his brown eyes. I reached to push them back and see the full image of his face. A part of me wondered why Angel resented being an artist so much. If I could put people to pencil, I'd never stop drawing him.
"You wanna say something," he said. Not a question.
I said, "It's a serious question."
"Oh, always serious." He lied back. His shirt rode up, and though the sliver of torso was small, it seemed blinding. "Is it about Captain America?"
"Har har."
"Hey, I'm serious."
"Shut up."
Angel laughed low under his breath. I fiddled with my sleeves and stared at the stripe of dark skin. His hand traced idle patterns into my leg, up and down, left and right, a star shape, a heart shape, a question mark.
The stars rolled on around me.
I said, "Why do you only paint when you're sad?"
His hand stopped mid-oval. His eyes opened, hazel light and dark roast a swirling heat in them.
Angel gave me a strange look. "When I'm...sad?"
I headed towards the window, where more of the moonlight could reach me, and maybe where Angel wouldn't seem so scared of telling the truth.
"Back in summer," I said. "I felt like that was the only time I ever saw you really draw."
Silence.
I said, "I know I asked you before why you don't draw anymore, but, I don't know." I glanced over my shoulder. "What's so...scary about it?"
His gaze was the same unreadable one I'd seen in the gallery, in Seattle, in the midst of those summer thunderstorms that had struck so suddenly and left just as quick. There was something so untraceable about Angel.
Where are you?
Angel considered me for so long I figured it was his way of declining answering. So I just sighed and let go of the lingering question, reaching to close the curtains.
A creak and footsteps stopped me.
Angel stood by my side, a ways away, otherworldly and estranged.
"I...kind of lost my mind, when I was seventeen," he said. His voice was freeze-dried and umbrageous. "I hadn't drawn much after I moved, just random things here and there. Then, I don't know, I just woke up and really wanted to and I couldn't really stop." His breath was heavy.
"But I always drew things I didn't want to," he said. "It was shit I knew, but I always drew them so..." Angel flexed his hands, faded scars shining in the light. "Nightmarish. So I get scared if I draw anything, I'll just ruin it." He turned a weak smile to me. "I'd prefer not to ruin anything of yours."
It was a jagged truth, raw and freshly cut. I shook my head. "You don't ruin anything."
He said, "Not evenly."
I reached out tentatively, fingers outstretched. Angel glanced down, then linked our hands; our hands, scarred and rough.
"Sorry," he whispered.
I took a step, our legs bumping together. "Don't be," I said.
Moonlight pushed me into him. He kissed me like he could undo and redo the world at the seams, like everything was nothing until he kissed me enough to make it something. He kissed like he loved.
My legs came around his hips, his mouth on my neck. A low flame burned in my stomach, and rolled down the space where my spine met the sheets. Angel pushed his hand towards my ribs, and I exhaled into his mouth. Teeth scraped into my lips. Burns bloomed on my thighs and chest.
I pushed the world right side up, his body now beneath me. Eyes soaked in amber blinked half-lidded up at me, both a question and a grin.
"New of you," he said, crooking an arm beneath his head.
My fingers tugged at the hem of his shirt. I said, "Can I?"
Angel faltered. He opened his mouth, then closed it.
"It's okay if not," I said.
He chewed his lip, then turned a half-hearted grin up at me. "It's not pretty," he whispered.
I cocked my head to the side. "Sounds familiar."
Angel laughed low in his throat. He sat up so I rested in his lap. His eyes searched my face for a few moments—eternities—speak.
He grabbed the hem of his shirt and lifted it up and away, tossing it to the other end of the bed.
Speak.
My hands hovered. I held my breath.
There were ones below his sternum, one over his stomach, dark and light and distant. A roughened stitch ran beneath his heart. Crescents branded his shoulders. Angry claws ripped into his ribs. I touched a burn peeking out from his hip.
Angel brought his arms around me, and gold traced cuts on cuts, stitched or breathing, new or old. One after the other, again and again.
I brushed my hands over his torso. He said, "Told you."
"Stop that," I said.
"It's fine, Haru."
"It isn't."
"Well, I know I looked fucked up, but don't stress like that."
"Angel."
"Really, Haru," he sighed, closing his eyes. "Just tell me I'm terrible."
"I love you."
He stilled. I gripped his shoulders as if I could tell him my racing heartbeat with my own palms. As if I could resew all the marred skin with my words.
"Sorry," I said. "I know that's off the cuff, but..." I forced my gaze to his. "You're not terrible. You're never terrible. You're just...you're you and you're the farthest thing from it."
He stared. He said, "What's that worth?"
My fingers traced his face. "What're you not worth?" As if to say there's a thousand terrible things, and you're not even half of one.
Angel said, "Hell, Haru." He pulled me into him, face buried in my neck. "Beat me to the punch."
I laughed. "I'm punctual."
"I love you," he murmured, breath warm on my skin. "I desperately fucking love you." He shook his head. "You're impossible, you know?"
"Because I beat you?"
"Because you're a dream," he murmured. Angel brushed a strand of hair from my face. "I haven't had a good dream in a really long time."
I could have been constantly consumed by that, endlessly and unwaveringly: loving and being loved.
I kissed him, trying to remake the night with my mouth, hearing him speak and speak into my skin. I ran my mouth down the slope of his ribs and chest. His hand pulled my hair back, eyes dark but moonlit.
It was strange how dark and light the world could be at the same time.
I followed the burn mark past his hip all the way down to his thighs. Angel hummed and whispered, pressed fingertips into my palms, kissed me into hazy storms, opened my mouth with his thumb and swiped over the ridge of my teeth.
The world warped and rearranged, reforming into an Angel-like shape. I tasted night-painted skin and hotel body wash. I felt fingers in my hair and hips to my nose. I heard the outside city and Angel's voice.
Angel.
I drowned willingly in it.
When the lights turned out, and nothing but midnight was left to illuminate us, his eyes as dark as my own with the sheets keeping out October's cold, he pressed my hand to his heartbeat beneath his shirt.
I smiled up at him. "What's this?"
Angel grinned back. "Life," he answered.
I took his hand, and let the heat of his palm sit warm on my own chest.
I said, "I like it."
It went:
Everything
It went:
Anything
It went:
You.
_____________________________
"You can't leave New York," Angel said, "and not get a bagel."
We sat on the hood of his car, a bagel and a coffee in our hands. The morning chilled us to the bone. New York warmed us back up.
"What'd you get?" he asked.
"Everything bagel," I said. "It's got everything."
"Everything?"
I nodded. "It's like the seasoning. Everything but the bagel?"
"Sounds like a BS seasoning."
"Don't be jealous because you haven't had it."
He laughed, taking a bite of his own cinnamon raisin, then reached over and tore off a piece of mine to pop it into his mouth.
"Well, I am missing out," he said. "Gimme that."
"Get your own!"
"So cruel. I thought you loved me."
"Bagels have nothing to do with love."
"You don't know my love then."
I handed him one last piece and leaned against him. "Hey," I said. "Do you want to go—"
Angel cut me off with a sudden jolt, tearing out his phone from his pocket. I stumbled back.
"Fucking hell," he muttered.
I frowned. "What's wrong?"
"What? Nothing. Sorry." He pocketed his phone, screen shutting off into black before I could catch a glimpse. "Spam call. Gotta block these numbers."
"Spam call," I repeated. "But—"
"What time is it?" he asked.
I paused, giving him another look before checking my phone. "9:13. Why?"
"Wanted to get on the road before ten. Finish your bagel or I will." He hopped down, hand still in the pocket where his phone sat.
I grabbed his sleeve and said, "You sure you're fine?"
Angel paused, then gave a quick grin. His hands ruffled my hair.
"Such a stresser," he murmured, chuckling. "All good, Haru. Don't worry about it."
You always say that.
Still, I clambered into the passenger seat without another word. He stuck his bagel between his teeth and started the engine, letting it rumble to life.
"Now the tricky part," he said. "Getting out of New York traffic."
"But where are we going?" I asked again.
Angel shrugged, and winked.
"Where are we not going?" he returned.
And so, we went.