Archive of Our Own

Like clockwork, how every other day of the year is, today also, breakfast is served at the Rachatrakul bed-and-breakfast, sharp at seven a.m, on a morning in May. The cream-colored, scalloped handkerchiefs folded into triangles. Jugs of orange juice, sunny-side up eggs with perfectly round, red yolks and a brown loaf of sourdough warm out the oven. The window overlooks the mountains, rings of mist around each peak. No guests are up this early, but Pete has the place-mats out. No-one is coming yet. But the chopsticks and spoons are laid. The hush of firs. The buzz of bees. Who is awake? Only the clouds and he. He goes to the window, puts two fingers to his mouth, and blows a tooting whistle . Once again, it is May.

Let the birds come.

~

The first repair of the season is going to be the creaking chandelier in the billiards room. Which is where San finds Pete, when she arrives at the BnB nine in the morning, five suitcases and all. Mork is not here yet. 

The crystal chandelier tinkles and rattles from the breeze coming in. Screws coming loose. Pete’s looking up at it with a triumphant glint in his eye. “The guests think the ghost is making it rattle,” Pete tells San. “The kids don’t believe it. But you should see the parents. That backyard alcove. Let’s just say that there’s no summertime stargazing happening since the story spread.”

“Of course the kids aren’t scared.” San says. “It’s a loony tale about lovers. The girls still think the boys have cooties.”

“Nothing like a ghastly rumor to bring in more customers.”

Spring on the mountain is endless rounds of laundry, lemonade and loneliness for Pete. More the number of customers, the more the crowd around him, the better.

His po doesn’t approve of him spreading ghost stories about their resort. Shook his head when Pete told him he’d already told nosy old June over at the Moon bar. “Enjoy your retirement,” he’d insisted. “The place is mine to ruin now.” Po snorted. Their family BnB is called Naowarat — nine precious stones — named after Pete’s late mother. He’d ruin himself before he let anything happen to the echo of mae’s voice in those moth-eaten, naphthalene-ball smelling halls. Those old, dusty, musty halls. Cursed halls. Haunted halls.

By the time Mork arrives it’s already evening. His sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he’s on a step-ladder fixing the chandelier. The crystals glimmer against his fair cheek. A dark sweep of hair over one eye, silver earring on one ear — got it pierced with Pete back when they were brats in school — and T-shirt with a large, talking coffee-bean printed across its back.

“Thank God,” June, co-owner of the Moon bar, and long-time guest of the BnB, says, “We’ll finally have decent cappuccinos in the mornings.”

“You do know that I carry rat-poison in my back pocket,” Pete tells his old friend. “Don’t you?”

“Please.” San interjects. “Your coffee is piss.”

So, these are his people. So? So what? Pete looks around the room. San, in her paint-splattered T-shirt and long, hand-embroidered skirt and studded leather boots — pirate princess wielding thread and needle. June, blonde streaked through black curls, juggling olives and laughing — mixologist extraordinaire and class clown. And Mork on the ceiling with the lizards and birds, brother from another mother — looks like a wolf but spends his days painting bunnies on lattes. His friends from school who come to keep him company in the May-time. It’s a small town, no one really leaves. If you’ve been to someone’s kindergarten graduation, you’ll also probably be at their wedding.

“Thada saw him in the city last month, you know?” San lets slip when the margarita’s got its way with her, “Said he might stay back this year.”

Seven years. Seven summers. Pete’s eyes are fixed on the north star crowning the juniper tree outside the window. Let the stars go out , he thinks, let the moonlight snuff out the sun . Let the firs and margosas grow yellow and gray. Let all of that happen but Pete will not utter that name again, will not think of him again.

He’ll be visiting gravestones, if he does ever come back. Pete thinks. It will be too late. Rachatrakuls are raised to never forgive, and he’s had to teach himself how to forget. What a fucking shame he’s failed every damn time.

~

Pete likes that it rains in his mountain town all year round — likes how the cooks can pluck herbs and vegetables from the rooftop-garden, batter and fry them into sizzling gold discs any old afternoon and their guests still lick the plates clean. He likes his black umbrella, running down the main street to fetch a last-minute cleaning supply for the staff like he used to when he was a teengaer. His face wet and cold, looking up at the blue-grey sky like the thunderclouds were a sign. This is home , he knew always, here is my heart beating in the drenched driveway gravel, here under the frangipani tree and in bare bannisters. The tree had been planted in the backyard of the BnB when he was a kid. He knew there weren’t many in the world lucky enough to have such a history on their shoulders.

That didn’t mean he didn’t fight with po growing up. “I’m gonna be a photographer,” he would announce one day. And, “I’m gonna be a motorcycle biker,” he would declare the next. It’s true running the BnB once he grew up hadn’t been his childhood dream. He didn’t have that many dreams, actually, never ones he would take seriously enough to actually act on them. There was nothing more than he wanted in his life than watching po grow old by his side. Especially after his sister moved away after getting married. He saw old people begin talking to pictures on the wall in their growing loneliness. Empty nests all around, in this corner of the world. So he’d sworn he’d never leave.

But he had been tempted, once upon a time, to fly.

Pete hates the five weeks of spring sunlight in their mountain town — hates how the children blow bubbles on the rooftop making rainbows out of soap, hates how the plums and apricots are dried into candy and he has to make emergency trips downtown for chocolate chip sprinkles at all hours of day. His face warm and soft, turned up at the spring sky. Petals falling from the white frangipani tree into the little waterfall. Brushing his cheek. Their sweet smell lingering in his clothes long after the sunset.

That is the only place Pete is convinced is actually haunted.

~

The actual repair of the season, of course, is not fixing the chandelier or washing the carpets, but, painting the bannisters. On the longest, hottest day of the year, the four of them, each with two buckets of paint, stand in the backyard in white overalls. Looking over the frangipani branches, the green valley extends into the horizon. White dandelions and yellow buttercups litter the fields on warm days like these. Each of them picks a new color every year. Green-Yellow-Purple — Mork-San-June — red — Pete. 

Over the year, the bannister always loses pigment in the rain. Pete can’t muster up the strength to re-do them until these people come each spring. They deep-clean the pantry and reorganize the cutlery and weed out the garden in May. They hold his hand through the painting of bannisters. It’s not like Pete can’t do them himself. But there, under each wooden slab, if you run your fingers along the underside of it, you will find an inscription. Under each one. Hundreds of them. Years and years of them.

They read, K + P. 

The fencing is scarred with memory. Pete is terrified of letting them on his skin again.

Pink-Brown-White — Mork-San-June — red — Pete — blue — Kao. But Kao isn’t here anymore.

~

But there he is anyway, sitting before the glistening yolks Pete has laid out at seven in the morning before the guests come. Kao likes them with mustard on them. Kao likes his plums sour and his Pete smiling and smirking and not sitting across an empty dining table at seven in the morning when the guests haven’t arrived yet.

The mansion is not haunted, of course not. But Pete does feel like a ghost sometimes. In his blue striped pajamas, a coffee mug cupped in his hands, leaning against the window frame by himself at sunrise. Unmoving as the purple butterflies on the wallpaper are, constant in that building. Waiting, waiting with his eyes on the horizon. Sometimes he thinks the mountains will miss his gaze when he’s dead. The frangipani tree will rot in the pond and the house will crumble in the centuries to come, but those damn bannisters will still stand.

It’s a small town. If your baby showers have been a month apart you’ll find yourself in the same classrooms. If you’re buying that same chemistry textbook for the coming school year you’ll run into each other at the single bookstore. If you want onion soup on a rainy evening on Sunday you’ll end up sharing a booth on the main street diner one day or another.

Pete grows up surrounded by Kao. His silver handprint beside Pete’s golden in the kindergarten class project. Knew Kao brought crackers in his lunchbox sometimes because his mae hadn’t been able to pack him a proper lunch because of her early morning work. Pete watched him out of the corner of his eye. The boy’s sweet-as-mango-slices smile, his easy camaraderie with his classmates and easier disdain for the brooding, bad-tempered boy who spent all his school years at the back of the class — Pete.

They ran into each other on the school rooftop sometimes. Pete smoking, Kao revising his notes. Pete throwing bread at the pigeons, Kao revising his notes. Pete capturing the sun through his camera, Kao revising his notes. 

“I’m leaving after graduation.” Kao informed Pete their freshman year. “I’ve gotta see the world.”

“Really?” Pete had hummed in response. Not too interested, absorbed in his viewfinder. 

“Really.” Kao said firmly. “So I don’t know why you keep coming up on the rooftop exactly at my revision time. But I’m warning you, Phubodin, don’t fuck with me. This is the most important hour of my day.”

“And you’re spending it with me?” Pete had chuckled, his eyes on the horizon, looking for the perfect shot. “No need for flattery, sweetheart. I can take a hint.”

Kao had just grunted in response. His hair was a bowl-cut, back then, and he wore green shrek socks and all his pencils were the size of Pete’s Hot Wheels cars. Pete doesn’t remember his face much. Those memories are from later years: his skin almost translucent in the evening half-light, his doe-eyes and mouth always quirked at the corner like an unsolved question always plagued him. Pete always had the urge to put his thumb to the corner of his mouth and smoothen that comma. God, Kao’s lips. 

By senior year, Pete knew he was never leaving this town. His father had begun trusting him. Something he became forced to do as his body slowed down. And Pete couldn’t let po down, not after all his rebel years. Crashing the family car into trees, being chased around by angry fathers after being caught kissing their daughters in the backyard and chain smoking until his throat burned. But his sister was getting married, and leaving their small town, leaving them all behind. And po had asked Pete if he could help the first guests of spring check in, and somehow, he knew he couldn’t let him down this time.

“What’s the dress-code for the reception?” Kao asked casually. His eyes were on the page of his book, but Pete knew the way his fingers clutched his pencil — he was nervous. But why? Was Kao afraid about hurting Pete’s feelings? Maybe so. The whole town knew how he felt about his sister leaving.

“Business casual.” Pete said. “But you’re allowed to wear your Hawaiian shirt. There’s a loophole for the class topper, see?”

“Well I look great in it.” Kao said. “So that’s a great rule there. Mr. Owner.”

There it was, the light teasing tone — would taste like  fruit punch, Pete thought, if he kissed Kao then. Sweet and citrusy. Pete loved talking to Kao like that, when Kao was arch and carefree. Not burdened by his studies or family or Head Boy responsibilities.

“I’m not the owner of the BnB.” Pete had shrugged, hoping Kao wouldn’t notice his blush. Truth be told, he was proud that po had begun to trust him. “I’m like the bell-boy, or the junior-butler”

“Okay.” Kao chuckled. “Butler Boy.”

This was four years since their first encounter on the rooftop. Kao’s shrek-socks had disappeared under the hem of his long uniform pants. He had also begun wearing a silver watch since junior year. Pete knew it had belonged to his father. There was a blue dolphin on the watch-face. 

Marine Biologist — Kao’s career response read. Pete hadn’t bothered filling the form. So the silver handprint was alone this time. Pete wasn’t going to be a career man. He was going to die in these hills, being everything they needed him to be for the rest of his life. He knew it in his bones. He hadn’t known it was possible to love a place this much until he fell in love with Kao. It was the way his heart broke when Kao left that he realized how fucking much he loved this town. Make me a pine tree in my next life , he thought, looking at the career response form. And let the birds come. Let them nest on my shoulders twig-by-twig. Eggs and all. 

At Pete’s sister’s wedding reception, Kao was surrounded by people. The parents adored him, their classmates either loved him or hated to love him. Pete, on principle, avoided Kao all evening. He looked sweet — in a peachy shirt and his hair gelled back with a single strand falling across his forehead. Pete kept count of Kao’s hors d'oeuvres. Five shrimp, two chicken and one pork. Ah, so Pete was right. Kao does love shrimp the most. Pete had them ordered frozen last week with the pretext of having a spring seafood boil for the hotel guests to justify the cost to po. But Kao doesn’t know all that.

“Marine Biologist,” Kao is telling the guests. “I’ll be swimming all over the world. The city university has a great program. Yes! That’s the one po went into. Yes. Yes. I’m tired of the mountains. There’s sea in my heart. Yes there is.”

Kao doesn’t know how much Pete wants him to turn around and tell all of this to him. Doesn’t know how much Pete regrets the no need for flattery, sweetheart four years ago instead of asking him which corals do you dream of? and tell me about your dreams and tell me about your nightmares and i’ll make you fall in love with the mountains so hard you’ll forget your damned ocean and just stay stay stay. 

Kao doesn’t. Until Pete is sitting by himself on the fence under the frangipani tree at the back of the BnB. Moonlight in the pond. Listening to the sparkling waterfall. 

He’d given his sister a final hug, guilty for being angry at her all this time. You’re not alone, she whispered in his ear, you know that right? Pete knows he’s going to call her at least twice everyday. Pete knows the people on the dance floor with cake on their faces are going to buy black-box-dye with him at the grocery store when he’s eighty. “I know,” he’d whispered back to his sister. “You deserve the stars, phi.” He didn’t say, don’t forget us.

Kao doesn’t know all this, Pete thought, until he heard the boy approaching from behind. Slinging his leg over the fence until they were both seated side by side. Their dark shoes reflected on the water side-by-side.

“Missed your smart mouth in there.” Kao said. “What’s gotten into you, Phubodin?”

Pete loved the way Kao said his full name. All grand and formal and bigger than Pete really was. 

“Just hate my phi a little today.” Pete admitted. “You know. The way you hate the people you love the most.”

Pete made the mistake of looking at Kao then. In the dark, the splash of silver in his doe-eyes, his mouth parted just a little, the comma on the corner of it that made Pete want to crush his lips into. Made him wanted to rub his nose against the mole of that nose that looked like the seed of a dragon fruit, lick it to see if it was just as sweet. Kao’s hands, larger than Pete’s and unsure around the wooden beam between them. Placed like the perch of a sparrow — about to take off any second. If Pete came on too strong, Kao would fly away, wouldn’t he?

“I know.” Kao said, looking at Pete like he was the last shrimp roll on the dinner table. “The way I hate you, I know.”

Kao had never looked at him like that before. Pete wondered if it was the Dom Perignon 1996. Pete had been desired before, he knew what that looked like. Liked how it made him feel. All warm and wanted. What screw had come loose in Kao’s superbrain that evening to be looking at Pete like that? 

“Hate you too, sweetheart.” Pete smiled, his hand inching closer to Kao’s on the beam. 

Kao moved closer too, and their shoulders touched. Close enough for Pete to smell his cologne: salt and woodland pine. Or maybe that's just how the waterfall at their feet smelled. Pete forgets. But that's how he remembers Kao now. Frangipani-sweet, murky rockland and yellow glow worms on water. 

But at that moment, everything else was forgotten. They were facing each other. 

“Nerd.” Pete said. “You were never cool. No matter what they told you.”

“Your sports car wasn’t cool either. And neither was your ripped jeans phase. You looked like a dirty caveman in them.”

Pete felt breathless. Watching in wonder as they both reached for each other’s hand at the same time. Kao’s hand was so warm on that cold night that he felt goosebumps all over his skin. Kao was so much smarter than him, he always thought, always focused with his arrowhead gaze, and pointed towards him in full force made him feel cornered, scared even. Well, there was no going back now: they were holding hands.

“You’re ungrateful for leaving,” Pete whispered. “The town that raised you. You’re leaving it behind.”

“It took too much from me.” Kao said. “There’s history in these hills I cannot forget.”

Pete knew. The death of Kao’s father. Surviving as a family of three for years after. All the part-times work to make the bills pay. 

“I’ll always feel lonely here.” Kao whispers. His thumb was running circles around Pete’s knuckle. His voice was pleading. Small. Vulnerable. Like he was as scared as Pete then.

“Guess you’d better leave then.” Pete replied. His eyes were on the quirk at the corner of Kao’s mouth. The question of loneliness — Pete may not know much else, but he’d been chasing an answer to it his whole life. Yes, he thought, finally I know something you do not. He put his thumb to Kao’s chin, tilting it up. Kao smiled immediately. Teasing. Like he knew Pete would do that. Like he knew Pete. 

“Careful, mister.” Kao said, as Pete’s index finger found the corner of his mouth. Kao’s skin was soft, like the skin of summer peaches. “That isn’t very hateful.”

Pete hummed. Tracing the arc of the boy’s cheek, the roughness of his stubble and the dampness from his moisturizer. “Examining the enemy,” he managed to say, knowing he was babbling nonsense at that point. “That’s how you stay sharp.”

“You’ll find out nothing.” Kao smiled, his hand closing around Pete’s neck. His hand was warm too. 

When Kao scratched the hair at his nape, Pete shivered. Made him want to do the same, put his hands on Kao’s shoulders and slip them under his shirt and feel up his chest. Eat him up. Possess the moonlight of his skin. This was the root of all problems, wasn’t it? Pete didn’t know how to hold without keeping. He never knew and would never learn. But he didn’t know all that back then.

“You’ll find nothing at the bottom of the ocean.” Pete accused. Desperate now, cupping Kao’s chin, could pull him into a kiss with a yank. But he couldn’t bring himself to. 

“There’s nothing for me in the mountains.” Kao repeated. Like a prophecy everybody knew and only Pete couldn’t accept. But his hands had found Pete’s navy tie. Pete felt the fabric strain around his neck as Kao tugged against it. 

“I’m not a dog,” Pete whined, as Kao tugged again. 

“Really?” Kao smiled. “Who was growling in the corner when everybody was talking to me in the bar? Why didn’t you just come and talk to me like a normal person instead of sulking by yourself?”

Because you don’t love me. Pete thought. And for you this is just a whim but I’ll never forget this night.

“Prove me wrong, then,” Kao said.

Kao tugged Pete’s tie again. But he was tongue-tied. He looked at Kao helplessly, thumbing his cheek. Kao rolled his eyes. “Okay, Beagle.” He said, and pulled at Pete’s tie so hard their heads knocked against each other. Their noses bumped. “Or do you prefer Collie?”

“German Shepherd,” Pete grunted, meeting Kao’s mouth with his own, “Or nothing.” Their puckered mouths met in a big smooching sound. 

Pete blushed. Kao’s hand around his tie made him feel like a fool, like he could tug Pete around town and Pete would follow. Ask Pete to memorize the periodic table backwards and publicly recite it on town square and he would do it. Wearing boxers with a rose between his teeth if that’s what Kao wanted. What was worse was that he wanted Kao to tug more, until his mouth parted and the hot fizzy feeling in his gut spread out all over his skin. 

“That’s now how you eat a lollipop,” Kao teased, his hands around Pete’s shoulders, playing with hair in the back. “Weren’t you the expert, again?”

It was true Pete had rather taken to lollipops after giving up cigarettes last year. And frequently boasted about it on their rooftop. 

“You’re not a lollipop.” Pete blurted out. “You’re sweeter.”

Pete knew Kao was laughing then, in a good way. Like he’d touched his heart. Pete’s face was so red it felt like they were under the hot May sun. Kao had to know why Pete was hesitating. Didn’t he?

“Where’s my voice recorder? I’ll have to set this as my caller-tune so everyone knows you’re a big goof inside.”

Pete’s hands travelled downwards, looping around Kao’s waist. He pinched Kao’s skin at that comment and Kao squealed. Everytime Kao laughed Pete felt like he’d taken a swig of lychee soda. That’s how Kao made him feel. Springtime in the sunlight.

“You couldn’t.” Pete said. “You wouldn’t want anyone to know we kissed.”

“I wouldn’t call that a kiss, Phubodin.”

“Phanuwat.” Pete’s voice cracked. “You wouldn’t, right?”

“You fool —”

Kao takes Pete’s hand, then, and puts it on his own thigh. Pete imagines the same smooth skin underneath, how it would look in the moonlight and his mouth waters. He quickly stops his mind before a different body part of him reacts. Kao smirks. 

They’re facing each other on the fence, one leg on each side. Kao brings Pete’s hands to his knee, and then under it, where the wood of the fence is. And then under the beam. The wood is damp and cold and craggly. When one index finger of Pete’s Kao’s spells out the first carving Pete would ever discover. K + P. It took a few iterations of tracing it for Pete to get it. From the confused look on his face, Kao must have known he couldn’t believe what it meant.

“Remember your seventh grade birthday party?” Kao said. “The one with the lemon pastry and golden balloons we all popped on the grass.”

Pete just nodded.

“This was then.”

Centimeter-by-centimeter, the years carved out on the wood painstakingly. That time Kao came for a group project in eighth grade. That time the gang gathered for ghost stories in eleventh grade. That time Kao came to deliver eggs from their chickens the previous week. Pete couldn’t believe it. 

He still can’t. That beautiful, brilliant Kao noticed Pete before Pete noticed him. When did Pete fall for Kao? He can’t say anymore. 

“You grew on me.” Pete said, that night. “Like fungus under oak trees in monsoon. You don’t realize it until you’re eating mushroom soup five times a week you look out and the trunk is all white and crusty.”

“I liked how earnest you were.” Kao said. “Before you covered it all up with that horrible frown and combat boots.” 

Kao was smiling then, like he was remembering a past Pete he thought Pete had forgotten. He couldn’t keep his hand on the fence anymore. The fire in his belly roared again. He cupped Kao’s face in one hand, wrapped the other around his waist, and crushed his mouth against the boy’s. Kao made a mewling sound. Pete wasn’t letting go after that. 

He parted Kao’s mouth with his own, and licked his tongue and the inside of Kao’s lips. Their teeth clattered. It didn’t matter. Pete tightened his grip around Kao’s waist until their chests were pressed together. He wasn’t letting go anymore. 

He was going to keep Kao, now that he had him. When Pete licked the roof of Kao’s mouth the boy whimpered. His grip on Pete’s shoulder became claw-like. It hurt a little. But Pete liked it. It was like standing in the rain with thunder in the sky, getting drenched down to his bone and a sneeze coming up his throat. All in. 

Pete moved his mouth away from Kao’s mouth, and felt the boy panting. He sucked on Kao’s cheek, licking his nose for good measure. 

“This too is sweeter,” he whispered. Kao was speechless. So Pete continued, “you’re so hot, I can’t believe it.”

It was a little animal, the way Pete licked a line up to Kao’s ear and sucked on his earlobe. Indecent for the backyard lawn, but Pete couldn’t stop himself, with the way Kao was moaning. His hands found the places where Kao’s shirt was tucked in and he slipped them under. Found Kao’s skin creamier than he’d imagined under his hands. Kao's hands were tightly gripped on Pete’s shoulders, letting Pete feel up his chest as he kissed and kissed Kao’s mouth again. 

“No answers?” Pets laughed. “Made you speechless, did I?”

Kao only hummed, his eyes closed. His mouth was a crescent moon, no comma at its corner. The way Pete liked it — smiling, swollen and just kissed. 

He couldn’t say he would rescue Kao from the loneliness he so feared. How could he know the kinds of pain Kao had borne? Who was he to pass judgement? Not his boyfriend. Not his husband. Not his lover. So he ran his hands over Kao’s chest and watched him pant. When he pinched a nipple, Kao yowled.

“Wow,” Pete grinned. “Now, that I should use as my caller tune.”

Kao didn’t bother finding his voice, yanking Pete’s collar and knocking their heads together again. Pete got the memo. He knew what it meant. Kao wanted to be kissed again. And they said in school Pete wasn’t a fast learner. 

They made out on the fence until their backs hurt against the wooden planks. Everytime Kao showed him a new carving it thrilled Pete anew. He’d never been happier, in his whole damn life. He even forgave his sister for going away. He forgave the hills for holding him hostage. If there was a night he truly believed there was a God sitting among the heavens, it was that night.

It was May. Glow worms made spots of light dance over Kao’s face and Pete kissed and kissed and kissed over all those spots. Kao laughed and laughed and laughed. It was springtime, and Pete hasn’t yet learnt to forgive.

That bannisters he cannot burn, the trees he cannot fell. 

“We should paint over these,” Kao had said, “They’re embarrassing.”

“Nope,” Pete had laughed, “We’re keeping them forever, baby.”

“I’m thinking blue,” Kao had said. “You?”

~

“He left me anyway” Pete says again, as they’re chomping on cucumber sandwiches after a whole afternoon of painting. “Did I deserve this? No! Did it happen anyway? Yep!”

It’s the wine and bloody sunlight, Pete knows. But he’s got his friends sitting around him on the warm picnic blanket listening to him retell the tragedy of his life the fifteen hundredth time, so maybe this is good enough. 

June’s painted red anime blush circles on his cheeks. Sandee has a lightning bolt on her neck. Mork has convinced Pete to draw a fake frown with black paint on his face. But really, it just looks like he has really thick brows now.

They take pictures and make fun of each other. They gossip about their friends who’ve left the mountains for good and bash anyone who hasn’t been good to them. Another springtime. The frangipani tree is in full bloom. There’s orange apricots on the table. And he’s not alone on the dining table at seven in the morning.

The power of us four, Pete thinks, can bring absolutely everything.

Pete thinks of Kao on those bannisters, leaping into the pool and shivering in Pete’s arms. The way he put a hand on Pete’s heart and could heal any ache that summer before he left for college. That was seven years ago. They way he kissed the top of Pete’s ears and made wishes against the apple of Pete’s throat like Pete could grant them. The way he liked his eggs is burned into Pete’s memory. How he watched soap operas with po in the living room and took over the curtain laundry so Pete could rest in the afternoon. But really, it was so Pete could follow him to the washing room, lift him up on one of the machines, and take off all his clothes. We’re going to wash them, aren’t we? Pete would laugh. Kao would whine, like it hadn’t been his plan all along. Now, there’s orange marmalade and pepper-dark omelets and bird-calls. But no Kao.

Except that one thing, Pete thinks, watching his precious friends on his precious lawn. 

So be it. Like trees, his feet planted in these mountains. His very soul in the north wind. The buzz of the nightwing moths and the sizzle of the toaster his music.

Let the birds come.

~