Page 106 of Angel of Thursdays

“Crying.” She pointed at him, then poised her hands above the keys and did her impression of a nine-year-old who did not want to play the Minuet in G minor, was not allowed to learn “My Life Would Suck Without You” and was crying about it an hour before his piano recital.

“Stop laughing,” May said to Cassiel, whose face was entirely still.

“I’m not laughing.”

“You’re laughing with your eyes. Like when you swear at me with your eyes. Mama, he has very expressive eyes, don’t you think?”

This stopped his mother mid-mockery, and she turned her gaze to Cassiel, studying his face, serving him right.

“Bigger eyes than Wuyue,” she said. It wasn’t even true.

His dad started bringing food out from the kitchen—the first time all night that May had seen him. The hong shao rou was his dad’s best dish, so it came out first. Then a whole steamed flounder, ginger and scallion heaped on top of the white flesh. Spinach with garlic, glossy with oil, what May had smelled when walking into the house. There was soup, too, wood ear and silken tofu with egg ribboned through it. It was over-peppered and the wood ear was probably rubbery and May wanted it in his stomach.

The rice bowls were the same ones they’d used throughout recorded history, the lacquered black with the dark red interior, still holding on, with a set of smaller metal soup bowls with mismatched spoons.

His mother lingered in the doorway, supervising, and then turned her head to the stairs and shouted “Huang Liuyuan!” as his dad sat down at his end of the table.

“This is Cassiel,” May said. “Cassiel—my dad Anthony.”

His dad dipped his head. “Hello,” he said.

He gestured at the pork belly. Cassiel obliged—his chopstick grip was steady and almost pretty, something about how his fingers rested on them. He placed the meat on top of his rice. Dad started eating, and Cassiel followed. May’s stomach felt marginally less unsettled.

“Wuyue, serve your friend some fish,” his mom said.

“He can serve himself, he’s not five.” May had given up on the ‘friend’ narrative.

“It’s polite.”

May scowled and served Cassiel fish. Cassiel looked at the fish on his plate, then at May.

“Thank you,” he said.

Louis was in the chair next to him. May hadn’t heard the stairs. He’d just appeared, already reaching for the rice.

“Hey,” he said. Then looked at Cassiel. “Hey.”

May served himself pork belly and said nothing about Louis’s sparkling conversational skills. The little asshole had been on the debate team in high school, once bragged about going to symposiums, and his entire vocabulary these days consisted of ‘fuck’ and ‘hey.’

His mother asked what Cassiel did for work. He answered. The watch-fixing confused her, probably because she hadn’t considered this was a job people still had outside of fairytales, which May supposed was fair enough. Cassiel then made the rookie mistake of naming Linden & Pratt as well as where it was located, so now she had that and would be asking about ‘Shenme Lincoln’ for the rest of time.

“Where is your family from?” she asked.

“Fremont,” Cassiel said, but because he had been adequately prepared in the morning, pre-empted the but where are they really from with, “We moved from Korea when I was six.”

She let out an ahhh like May hadn’t told her he was Korean already. He reached across for the spinach.

“Do you know BTS?” asked his mother.

“Holy shit,” said Louis.

“Not personally,” said Cassiel. May’s hand was shaking and he needed to be comatose.

“He’s so serious,” she said to May in Mandarin. “How does he stand you?”

Louis snorted. “She wants to know how you put up with him.”

May tried to kick him but couldn’t reach so he sat back down in his seat and ate his spinach. He didn’t look at Cassiel, didn’t want to see if he was going to try to answer that. And then his mother spoke again: