Page 79 of Angel of Thursdays

May looked at it for a long minute. Sunny was explaining the difference between a French press and an American press in the background, but May was thinking about Cassiel—the version of him who would have stood here at fifteen or sixteen, same lights, same noise, probably a hundred times worse when there were actual customers inside the laundry part of the business.

A timer beeped from where the wedding dress had been and Sunny looked up, nodded at May—tour-slash-training-session complete—and headed back to his work. May gave him an awkward half bow and turned around.

Jaewon was now drawing on a receipt pad with a pen he’d found, sitting on the floor. May grabbed the stool Jaewon had vacated and watched Sunny Lim finish the dress.

“Jaewon,” May said. “When’s your birthday?”

“July twelve,” came the response from below. “I’m gonna be seven.”

“You having a party?”

Jaewon looked up with an incredulous expression.

“Yeah,” he scoffed. “And the theme’s gonna be demons versus an-matronics and you’re gonna be a demon.”

May considered the logistics of this and decided he could roll with it. He could ask about the demon powers later. He pulled the purple notebook from his backpack and crouched down next to Jaewon, flipping to a fresh page.

“Can you put it in here?”

Jaewon took the notebook with both hands and wrote, in letters so large they took up half the page: JAEWON PARK JULY 12. Below it, he also included a drawing of something with four legs and a tail or possibly five legs and no tail or five tails and no⁠—

“What’s that?” May asked.

“That’s you.”

May squinted and turned the notebook sideways.

* * *

“Minseok’s mom, she’ll want to see you when you come for dinner,” said Cassiel’s father as May was leaving. He’d touched May’s sleeve.

May didn’t ask when. There were more pressing logistics. “Yeah—of course.”

The man nodded, placed his hand on May’s shoulder, and said, “Drive carefully,” and May felt the mental whiplash of hearing the words in English. He knew unjeon josimhae because he’d heard it enough times, and Cassiel’s line slipped out: “I’m taking BART.”

Sunny smiled.

May found Minju still at the counter when he came back through the plastic curtain. She was entering something into the computer, tapping away.

“I’d… like to RSVP to Jaewon’s birthday party,” May ventured. He couldn’t say where the optimism came from.

“The invite’s going through his uncle,” she said without looking up, and there was an implication there, but May couldn’t unpack it on the spot. “But don’t expect anything until May.”

“I’m May.”

She sighed. He smiled.

“See you, Minju.”

“Bye, May.”

May walked to the station, feeling that something had been accomplished, even if not all the way. Cassiel’s dad had shown him every machine in the shop. Minju hadn’t been friendly, but she hadn’t spit in his face, and he’d secured a role as a demon at a to-be-seven-year-old’s birthday party. There was still a house he needed to go back to, but not today.

He blew out a breath, patted his phone in his pocket, and headed to the station.

* * *

The Daly City-bound was crowded for a Sunday. May found a seat by the window and shoved his earbuds in, leaned his head against the window. The bay was shimmery copper in the light and he watched it change as the train entered the tube. The view turned into tunnel wall and dark, just his own rumpled reflection staring back at him.