Page 104 of Angel of Thursdays

Right. He had a father.

“He’s quiet.” May shrugged. “He just doesn’t really talk. He cooks. The food’s all him. That’s his thing.”

His dad’s quiet was not the same as Cassiel’s dad’s quiet, but May didn’t know how to say it. It was a quiet that he had grown up around, the thing he and his mother and Louis and sometimes Anna’s loudness flowed around, not inside.

“He’s just gonna be there, probably. I don’t know. He’s just some guy. My mom’s the one who’s going to be insane.”

Cassiel’s bare finger tapped the counter once.

“And there’s Louis. You’ve met. He’s warming up to you.”

“He isn’t.”

“Well, no,” May agreed.

He slid off the counter eventually, and Cassiel followed him over to the couch. They did nothing for a long time after that. Cassiel watched something on his phone with his headphones on. May lay on the other end with his feet tucked under Cassiel’s leg and did not sleep, though he came close twice. Neither of them mentioned the UCSF envelope on the counter. It was a later-thing. It would not always be a later-thing.

As the morning became afternoon, they left the apartment. On a normal day, May would be at work at this hour, and so would Cassiel, with only a break for his precious chicken katsu sandwich.

They walked down Balboa to Chino’s for lunch where May spent more red envelope money on a burrito because this was that type of day. Then back to the apartment. May decided to share the same end of the couch this time, falling asleep for real with his face tucked into Cassiel’s collar halfway through a video about American Psycho: The Musical.

Cassiel nudged him awake at quarter to five. May dragged himself upright, yawned until his jaw cracked, and became aware of Cassiel studying the top of his head. He started to get up.

“Nope,” May said.

“Don’t move,” Cassiel said, stern as anything.

“It’s fine⁠—”

But Cassiel was already in the kitchen. He came back with the scissors—the same ones that had caused the problem—and stood behind the couch. May sat. The cuts were small, efficient, not a haircut so much as a correction. Hair fell on his shoulder. The whole affair took two minutes.

“She would have noticed,” Cassiel said, which was true.

May brushed some hair off his shirt, then grabbed the bomber jacket and his backpack. The paper bag with his dad’s jacket was still by the couch next to the miscellaneous piles of other junk. He picked it up.

“Ready?”

Cassiel’s pocket made a snapclick. He nodded.

* * *

The L-Taraval dropped them three blocks away from the house. May carried the paper bag under one arm. A tiny white cat watched them from a porch railing. May waved at it as Cassiel took a picture.

His family home looked smaller than he remembered and exactly the same, except his dad had repainted the door. He’d noticed it on New Year. It gave him an odd sense of déjà vu and he stood there, taking a moment to re-orient. He hooked Cassiel’s sleeve with two fingers and tugged lightly. Cassiel tilted his chin. May smiled, let go, and climbed up the steps to knock.

The door opened to his mother. She was in a yellow cardigan and her hair was shorter than it had been on Thanksgiving. It looked better than his attempt pre-intervention, though she probably hadn’t done it herself.

“My son is here.” She was not wasting time. She turned her head and yelled down the hall. “Huang Guochun your son is here!”

“Hi, Mama,” May said, smiling and reminding himself that he was good at smiling. Famously. “This is Cassiel.”

May elbowed the man beside him, who was just standing there.

“Hello,” Cassiel said, profoundly unhelpful.

“Wuyue’s friend.” May’s mom smiled at Cassiel and May did not roll his eyes or say anything as she opened the shoe cabinet to retrieve two pairs of identical blue checkered slippers. They were too small, because they were a Chinese women’s M and the subject of countless arguments in the years they’d lived at this house.

May watched Cassiel step into the slippers without comment, like a good Asian boy. He followed suit.