Page 48 of Angel of Thursdays

“Nice shirt,” Cassiel said.

May’s hand went to the collar. “Lauren.”

“I know. It looks good.”

May beamed.

Cassiel sat down on the carpet. He didn’t sit on the carpet at his parents’ house. He was an adult. The carpet was Jaewon’s jurisdiction. But May was on the carpet and the couch was full, so Cassiel sat with his back against the base of his father’s chair with his knees drawn up.

David sat on the far end of the couch with a book open on one knee and Hayoung on the other. He looked up when Cassiel settled.

“May’s telling me about the podcast,” he said. His thumb held his page—a paperback, dark cover, small font. “The Kevin’s Got A Guy thing.”

Cassiel was fairly sure it was Kevin Knows A Guy.

“People call in with stuff they can’t figure out,” May explained. “Kevin, Big Kev, he investigates, I do the post-production side. My brain’s a little—” The hand opened and closed. “I’m relearning the software. Slowly.”

“I was saying he should get in on the detective work,” David said. “I can see him in a trench coat. Deerstalker. Pipe.”

“All of the above,” May said.

David nodded seriously, then went back to his book. May crawled across to Jaewon.

Cassiel’s mother called them to the table. Dinner was japchae, galbi, rice, and kkakdugi. His mother had set the table for seven, Hayoung already lowered into her high chair.

May had brought Tsingtao from Lau Kee, six bottles in a plastic bag, and another bottle of grape-flavored soju. The soju was open, already taste-tested by someone. His father’s novelty shot glasses were out.

His mother had put May to work the moment he arrived—the japchae, the vegetables, the lesson she’d been promising for weeks. Now she placed the serving dish at the center and said, in Korean, to the table, “He did the vegetables,” and May straightened in his chair proudly.

Jaewon sat on May’s other side. This was not negotiable. The shoe alliance operated independently of Cassiel, and Jaewon spent the first ten minutes of dinner explaining to May which Octonaut would be friends or mortal enemies with which Five Nights at Freddy’s character, with breaks to complain about the fact that his umma wasn’t letting him watch the movie.

Halfway through dinner, his father reached across the table and moved the japchae closer to May’s plate unprompted, the serving spoon angled for easy grip. His father’s serving patterns were mapped in Cassiel’s memory. This was not in the pattern. Across the table, Minju’s chopsticks paused.

May took it. “Thank you, Mr. Lim.”

His father shook his head.

“Uncle,” he said.

“Oh.” May’s chopsticks hovered. His eyes went bright and then his grin appeared, gap-toothed. “Uncle.”

His mother asked about May’s holiday plans. May answered with his mouth full, which his mother would have corrected in her own children. This was apparently permissible in May.

“We don’t really do Christmas,” May said. “Like, gifts and whatever. My sister usually tries to get everyone together but she’s in Sacramento. My brother is a shut-in, he’s probably just gonna play games.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Everyone’s doing their own thing.”

Cassiel heard it. The place where May’s voice became airy and the shrug came too fast and the room got warmer because the furnace was burning hotter to compensate for something cold. He heard it in ‘their own thing,’ and he didn’t know what was underneath it or if he should ask.

Then the moment passed.

* * *

Like the last time, his mother produced two sets of containers packed and labeled in hangul with the contents and the date, one for Cassiel and one for May. She handed May’s directly to him, and May took them with both hands.

Minju collected Hayoung, bundling her up. David collected his book before Jaewon was extracted from May’s vicinity, his new red shoes bright and loud on his feet.

“Appa,” Cassiel’s mother said. “Drive them to the station.”

His father was already reaching for his keys.