Page 64 of Angel of Thursdays

“May-hyung, this is a Chinese one,” he said.

“Oh. Yeah, it’s a red envelope.”

“Korean ones have this pattern.” He pointed at the one from his grandparents, which had a different set of standards that a six-year-old could apparently distinguish on sight. Or maybe he noticed his grandparents’ ones didn’t have pandas on them and were considerably less flimsy.

“You’re right. Mine’s different. Is that okay?”

Jaewon shrugged.

“I like red,” he said.

“Red is the best color,” May agreed, and his chest did something like acid reflux but the kind that likes you, and he moved on to Hayoung, who received her envelope by immediately trying to crush it in her tiny hands and had to settle for chewing instead. Perfect.

Miss Mary appeared at his side, and May looked down as she pressed an envelope into his hands. White, with a gold snake on the front.

“Sebaetdon. For health and fortune.”

“I can’t⁠—”

“You can.” This was a tone that ended conversations. May tucked the envelope into his back pocket.

* * *

The soup was perfect. Clear broth, rice cakes that stretched when you pulled them apart, eggy ribbons floating on top. Cassiel’s mom had made enough for two families. Cassiel’s dad ate steadily at the head of the table and said nothing and refilled May’s bowl when it got low. Sunny Lim liked him. He knew this now.

May ate one bowl, then another.

“Twenty-seven,” Cassiel said from across the table.

“Twenty-five. I reject the premise.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Okay but what if I eat zero bowls. Am I twenty-five forever? Because I’m hearing a loophole, Cassiel.”

Sunny Lim was smiling and nodding. Then finally, he agreed with his son: “Twenty-seven.”

“I can’t do this,” May said, and drank more soup.

By two, the morning had run out of structure. Sebae done, tteokguk done, dishes stacked by the sink. Church friends came and went—a couple with a fruit box, a woman who pinched May’s arm and said something in Korean that made Miss Mary laugh. The house breathed in and out. Minju was eating for the first time all morning, standing at the counter with a plate of jeon, while David walked Hayoung in slow circles down the hall.

May stood in the kitchen doorway and watched Cassiel across the room. On the couch, Jaewon wedged against his side, both of them looking at something on Cassiel’s phone with the shared focus of two people who took screen content seriously. Cassiel’s free hand rested on Jaewon’s back. His shoulders were down and his ring was clicking at idle speed.

The afternoon was golden. Literally. The sun came through the west-facing windows and the living room went golden, the color of fried batter, and May sat on the floor with Jaewon building a block tower that Jaewon kept destroying because destruction was fun. Someone’s phone was playing trot music from the kitchen, and the house was full of people who wanted to be there, and May wanted to be there, and he was, and when the blocks fell again, Jaewon shrieked with delight. May laughed with him and began the reconstruction.

* * *

When the room flattened, the tower was six blocks tall.

The light through the west windows was the same, and Jaewon was explaining something about the blue block’s name being Balulu or Pazuzu, and May’s hands were still on the carpet, and all of it was still there—the jeon, the trot, Miss Mary’s voice from the kitchen—and all of it was frozen.

He’d been here a second ago. He’d been inside it. The block in his right hand was wooden and had a letter on it—J or T or something, the paint was chipped—and he could see his fingers around it but the fingers were the impression of fingers. Someone had painted a picture of a hand holding a block and May was looking at the picture.

Jaewon’s voice came from far away, the signal thin. The source was somewhere else.

“May-hyung? Hyung, I said Balulu wants to be on TOP.”

“Yeah,” May said. “Yeah, Balulu goes on top.”