Page 107 of Angel of Thursdays

“This one hates coming home.” His mother jerked her head in May’s direction.

“I don’t hate it,” May muttered, sensing where this was going.

“I ask him if he’s coming for Christmas and nothing.” She tapped the chopsticks against the edge of her bowl, her voice pitching up as she switched to Chinese: “I call and call and call and Huang Wuyue is too busy and then suddenly, ah, he’s coming over with a boyfriend.”

May felt bile rise in his throat, acid through the layers of oil and fat. His cheeks were hot.

“That’s not what happened.”

“May.” His dad wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at the fish, holding his bowl and chopsticks. But May shut his mouth anyway. He plucked the fish eyeball even though it always kind of creeped him out, and ate it anyway.

Cassiel’s posture hadn’t changed since he sat down. The kitchen light was slightly green and May knew it was wrong for him, too bright, wrong color, but Cassiel was living through it. May should be as well.

“—So Dad painted the door?” May asked.

“He always paints the door,” sighed his mother. “I told him…”

His dad got up to refill the rice. He’d cooked more than usual but five people at the table went through it pretty fast. He brought the pot back from the kitchen and served Cassiel first, then his mother, then May, then Louis, then himself.

May’s hand found Cassiel’s knee under the table and Cassiel’s brushed over it for a second before moving it back. May exhaled.

His mother was still talking.

* * *

The clock struck nine, or would have if there was a clock that did striking in the house. They left at nine. Outside, the fog had rolled in fully. It was Silent Hill outside. May’s mother stood in the doorway and hugged May and held on until he started squirming.

“Your friend is nice,” she said into his ear. “Polite.”

“Yeah.”

“Not very tall,” she added, because there always had to be something. She looked at his face the way she’d been looking at his face since the hospital, and then she let go.

She looked at Cassiel. “You like him?”

“Yes, Auntie,” said Cassiel.

She nodded. May bent down to pick up the records he’d placed by the door earlier so he wouldn’t have to control whatever expression his face was making. His bounty.

“Bye, Stock Photo,” Louis said from the stairs, already halfway up. The little shit.

“Bye Louis, my flesh and blood,” May replied loudly to the thudthudthud of his brother retreating all the way up the steps. Cassiel cleared his throat and his mouth stayed a flat line but did a little twitchy thing.

Dad was loitering in the hallway, waiting for them to leave. He raised his hand.

“Good night,” he said.

May raised his hand back. Cassiel bowed. Then they were walking down the concrete steps into the fog, and behind them the red door did not close.

“Don’t look back,” May said out of the side of his mouth. “They’re standing there watching. Keep walking.”

He did not get the sense that Cassiel would have looked back, but now the temptation was planted. The old Orpheus challenge. Cassiel raised an eyebrow.

“Is it cultural?”

“Allegedly,” he replied. He’d complained about it as a kid and all through his teens, the way his parents would stand on the step with the door open, the lights down the driveway lit, watching guests leave until they could no longer see them. The word he used was ‘creepy.’ The word his parents used was ‘hospitality.’

They kept walking.