Page 17 of Angel of Thursdays

They left Sparrow at half past ten. The fog had thickened while they were inside, the far end of the street visible only as an implication.

They stood by the flower box, blocking the view out the front window for anyone else inside. Cassiel turned in the direction of the bus stop and May stretched, arms overhead, backpack jostling, and the 49ers jersey rode up past his belt.

“Tuesday,” May said, over his shoulder. “One forty. You nervous?”

“No,” Cassiel answered, and it was something akin to the truth, because his jaw had stopped clenching at some stage.

“Great, me either.”

Then May turned north toward the 29 and Cassiel toward Irving for the N. The distance opened between them in the fog, and Cassiel stood on the sidewalk for five seconds longer than the route required, watching the red of the jersey disappear into the mist.

CHUSEOK

May stood beside him in the promised navy button-down, which was more Nordstrom Rack sales section and less Milan fashion week, but it was tucked in, tidy, and it fit. He had switched out the dirty sneakers of Thursdays for a pair of blue canvas shoes. His hair was roughly symmetrical today. May had greeted him at Powell Station with an enthusiastic, three exclamation mark wave, and a pink bakery box cradled preciously in his other arm.

The egg tarts inside the box were still warm even now, the scent of the custard sweet and eggy through the cardboard. Beneath it, he could catch a whiff of May’s aftershave, which was probably advertised as ‘fresh.’ It was bearable.

“You’re quiet,” May said.

“I’m frequently quiet.”

“Quieter than your regular quiet.”

Cassiel’s hand was flat on his thigh. He was not stimming. Both palms pressed against the fabric of his trousers, fingers spread, grounding through surface area. The station echoed around them—an announcement in the wrong cadence and someone’s alarm chirping from a distance at an interval that on a routine day would have driven Cassiel into a quiet frenzy.

“My mother is going to be very happy,” Cassiel said.

“That’s good, right?”

“Hm.”

May shifted the bakery box to his other hand. “I’m good with moms.”

“I know.”

The train came in nine minutes, which was worse than eight and better than the eleven he’d been calculating. They sat in the middle car, two-seat side, Cassiel at the window. The pressure changed in the Transbay Tube, the car rattling through the deep section, and May was beside him, warm and present, smelling clean and artificially sweet and for once not a trace of Lau Kee’s oil on him.

May had pulled out his phone, flipped it to landscape mode, playing some kind of turn-based game Cassiel didn’t recognize. He played in silence for a minute, maybe two, and then locked the screen and put the phone down on his thigh and sat in the quiet.

On his own phone, four texts from Lauren, timestamps suggesting a slow build since noon. He read them, typed On the train. He brought egg tarts, and put the phone away.

The East Bay opened up outside the window—the dry hills, the highways wider than anything in the city, the light different here, warmer, less filtered. Fremont in fifteen minutes.

“May,” he said.

“Present.”

“Thank you for coming.”

May turned his face to look at him. The smile was different; smaller, boyish, no teeth. “I mean, you’re paying me.”

“Still.”

“Still… Yeah. You’re welcome.”

* * *

The smell hit at the door. Sesame oil and garlic and something caramelizing—the galbi, probably. His mother always started it early.