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The wind came through crisp and cold in February, dragging in from the bay and through Revachol. It blew newspapers about and cracked dry, aching skin. The ever-present sleet and ice slid from awnings onto the sidewalk below, where it melted just enough to turn into black slush. It blew into diners and down the backs of anyone too proud to wear thick scarves or knitted hats.
And yet, the mood in the GRIH was uncharacteristically jovial. Pink and red lungs splattered promotional posters hung in Frittte windows, sponsored by Saint-Baptiste and selling chocolates or alcohol. People walked down the sidewalks holding bouquets of cheap flowers against the wind, hurrying home or to one of the few restaurants in the district that served as an appropriate date spot.
Hell, even the diner near precinct 57 had been decorated. When Kim had paid for his regular eggs (scrambled) and toast (plain), the waitress gave him a chalky yellow candy lung that said HOT STUFF. He left it on the table with the bill.
Paperwork in the morning, out for field work before noon, but his daily plans had been usurped at four o’clock by a new case on his desk. This interruption in his routine was usually unremarkable—the interruptions were, of course, part of the routine—but today it set him on edge, left him curt when junior officers came to turn in their work or when a civilian had turned in a wallet off the street.
It was almost seven when he pulled out of the precinct garage, cursing at the pedestrians on the street and the traffic across the bridge. The other carriages cleared out as he crossed into the Eminent Domain, and by the time he had pulled into the most secure lot in the Central Jamrock area to park his MC for the night, Harry was already waiting for him at his parking spot.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. If everything had gone to plan, Kim would have had plenty of time to walk to his apartment before their usual seven o’clock meeting time. As it was, though, Harry stood with his hands in his pockets, beaming up into the Kineema as Kim rolled the engine over.
Kim frowned down at him, still sour from the inconveniences of the day.
“What, no flowers?”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got something better than flowers planned.”
They started walking. The wind was just as strong outside as it looked, cold enough to slip into Kim’s bones through the zipper of his jacket and the seams of his driving gloves. He tried not to shiver, but Harry still noticed.
“Here,” he said, unwinding the scarf from around his own neck.
“No, no, I’m okay.”
Harry frowned in that way that Kim had learned meant a conversation he was not invited to.
“Take these, at least.” He handed Kim a pair of brown wool gloves. They fit well over his driving gloves, snug but not too tight. They warmed him well enough as they walked.
Harry talked idly about his day, and Kim listened with just as much direction. It was basketball season, and the kids were enjoying the pickup games Harry was running them through instead of the scant curriculum he had been given as a re-certified gym teacher.
“Running back and forth with them, teaching them proper form, it’s really doing wonders for me. Amazing what a little basketball can do for stamina.”
It was more than the sports, but Kim wouldn’t argue about it. Being back in school was good for him—the kids were, somehow, good for Harry. He’d buy a bag of tiny oranges every day at the grocery store just to make sure they had something to eat after class. He liked being able to give them an outlet for their energy that wasn’t out in the dangerous world.
Watching Harry find something to give himself to was nice, after those turbulent in-between months of quitting the RCM and finally landing a teaching job. He had grown outside of the force in a way that he never had been able to while inside it, settling into this new place for himself. To be able to witness it was something of an honour and a perpetual— something, for Kim. Though he refused to place the feeling.
“... But I think the school will let me start the league sometime in the spring. Did you do anything today?”
“Oh, work. Nothing special.”
“Nothing special yet, you mean.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Yes, we will.”
There was a small grocer near Harry’s, stuck between a petrol station and a Seolite restaurant. The smell of fuel and garlic mingled as Harry hurried to the produce propped up outside in crates and big cardboard containers.
“Pick out whatever you want to eat,” Harry said, already elbow-deep in the cabbages.
“You don’t have anything prepared?”
Harry looked up at him, a curl from the left side bouncing in front of his eyes. “Of course not,” he said, plain as day. “Just whatever looks good. I want to make something special.”
Special, of course, scared Kim, who had been eating the same three dinners since his twenties. Picking some ingredients, then—potatoes, a head of garlic, four eggs—meant he could at least steer the dish in the right direction.
Under the dim fluorescent bulbs, Harry skittered from aisle to aisle, picking up and returning boxes of pre-flavoured rice and heavily discounted cans missing their labels. Kim watched with cautious interest as he looked through the condiments and sauces, watching him pick something dark brown and viscous and pile it on top of the seemingly random foods in his arms.
“We could have grabbed a—”
Harry shook his head so violently that a box of macaroni flew from his arms.
“That’s quitter talk, Kim. I don’t want to hear about a basket.”
Kim couldn’t understand Harry’s method of grocery shopping, but had observed it to be something of an initial round of wishful thinking, followed by a realistic purge. They presented a meager bounty to the cashier of potatoes, garlic, eggs, cabbage, a sausage, the mystery sauce, and—
Harry held a small square of chocolate in his hands, the kind that Kim liked. He was staring at it intensely, peering into the plastic, mumbling something unheard. Kim watched him with hands behind his back. Harry’s eyes turned sad, then glossy.
“Their hands are so tired,” he whispered, turning the chocolate over in his hands. “They’re just kids…”
Kim chanced only a singular glance to the cashier, as if daring her to mention it. “I’m not in the mood for chocolate. How about these, instead?”
Kim gently pulled the package from Harry’s hands, setting it down with the impulse candies lined up at the register. He grabbed a small bag of red, lung-shaped gummies instead, tossing them to the cashier. He let Harry pay, but refused to let him carry the bag.
Harry smoked a cigarette on the walk home with his empty hands. He gestured as he spoke, regaining his spirits. Kim listened to him intently at first before his thoughts wandered, unable to keep up with the jumps in topic.
Today was not a holiday. Not really—not even the white collar out east got today off. It celebrated some unheard of saint from another Isola that no one cared about. It certainly wasn’t celebrated in Revachol when Kim was a boy, or even a teenager. All the same, sometime in the thirties advertisers and films had imported it through the pale to sell jewelry, candy, lingerie, alcohol. It was a spending day. It was nothing more.
When was the last time Kim had even celebrated? In his twenties, with a boy who had only called him a friend? Ten years ago, giving in to loneliness with a man just as lonely as him in a dark bar?
He didn’t know what today meant for Harry, who had no Februaries before this.
“See?” Harry said as he unlocked the door, revealing the entrance to his apartment. A short foyer gave way to a square kitchen, with the darkened hallway to the living area on the far wall. “No flowers.”
“No. Nothing else, either.” Kim set the bag on the counter. He pulled all of the items out of the bag except for the brown sauce, hoping it would stay forgotten.
“Always a critic.”
“At least you cleaned.”
Kim was on chopping duty. Harry sang as he worked, layering ingredients into a tall pot with some unseen guidance. Kim once asked him when he learned to cook, a question that had deeply confused Harry—why would you need to learn? He cooked with a joy and intuition that felt to Kim entirely inaccessible.
He watched him stir the bubbling pot with only a small amount of distaste. It smelled familiar, but Harry hadn’t put that sauce in yet. He tried not to step in too much when Harry cooked, but it was difficult to see his freedom of method as anything but a mistake waiting to happen. Why cook with a new sauce when you knew that you liked potatoes with butter and salt? Cooking made him happy, though, in a way that Kim could barely understand.
The brown sauce was thick as Harry poured it into the pot, using a spoon to help it along. Kim could smell it as it warmed up.
“Here, try it.”
Harry handed a fork over to Kim loaded with a single brown, glossy potato. There were small dark flecks suspended inside, some sort of spice, maybe, but the viscosity was altogether unplaceable—
“Kim!” Harry laughed. “Just try it.”
Kim put the fork to his mouth. It was sweet, sour, salty. Definitely brown . It wasn’t spicy, but left his mouth tingling. Underneath, the potato was soft, easily chewed, a little buttery. He frowned.
“It’s… Okay.”
Harry grinned, apparently victorious. He brewed and poured some tea. He pushed the plain, sauceless bowl over to Kim before taking his own out to the living room.
“Now, I have a few choices for you, depending on what you’re in the mood for…”
Kim grabbed his food and drink, padding out behind him. In the center of the coffee table was a projector, rented from the video store down the street. Kim set his food and tea down on the table, flipping through the options as Harry continued.
“Got that one film I’ve been talking to you about, it’s a little long but really worth it… Last year’s Tip Top reels, I know you like that one… The Journals of Brigitte Joffrin , do you remember that one? I also got the recording of the last Stormer’s game.”
“The Stormers lost, twenty two to thirty four.”
“Well, yeah, but don’t you want to see how they lost? It’s all about the plays, Kim.”
Kim had been avoiding the four hour long unscripted Graadian film about the woman and her lover (the wind) for as long as they had been together, and would like to be able to avoid it a little longer. He’d seen last year’s reels plenty of times, and couldn’t begin to understand Harry’s love of romantic comedy.
It wouldn’t be a decision if he hadn’t had the chance to complain a bit, though.
“Okay. Put the game on.”
A burst of hot air and light filled the room as Harry turned the projector on. Kim watched as he threaded the film through with practiced ease—he was always renting the projector from the video store. A few more paychecks and Kim was going to be able to buy a used one for Harry’s birthday.
Kim ate in measured silence as he watched Harry watch the game. He was loud and participatory, exactly the sort of fan Kim would expect him to be—he leaned in to watch the men on his wall run back and forth, shouting plays at them as if they could hear.
Kim reached for a sweater he’d left last week that sat waiting on the back of the sofa. The way his things had spread out through Harry’s apartment, slow but dedicated to the cause… He’d bought his own creamer for Harry’s fridge. A second toothbrush in the bathroom. A handkerchief on his side of the bed, and a pill bottle with his night medications should he need them. Not even he could stop himself from spreading through the apartment.
Harry yelled at the projector, burying his face in his hands after a particularly dismal Stormers fumble. Kim took the opportunity to steal another one of Harry’s saucy potatoes. The flavour burst in his mouth, pings and pangs of something sweet, salty, completely new, admittedly nice.
Harry scooped some of his brown, glossy potatoes into Kim’s bowl. In payment, Kim gave him some of his plain. They stirred together, silent until the next mistake pulled a groan out of the both of them.
“Oh, come on! It’s like they’re trying to lose!”
“Certainly not their best.”
“I mean, I know Kowalski has a fucked up ankle right now, but that doesn’t—”
“If his ankle is hurt, they shouldn’t have—”
“They shouldn’t have! Exactly.”
A huff of indignation, from two mouths, exactly in time. Harry finished his food in a few loud bites. Kim picked at his bowl until, mostly finished, it sat on the coffee table next to Harry’s.
The game didn’t get any better. The Stormers had a brief moment of brilliance in the second half, but were quickly beat back down.
“This is painful.”
“Yeah… I didn’t expect the journey to defeat to be so…”
“Painful?”
“Yeah.”
Ten minutes left in the game. There was no going back from this. Harry pulled the blanket from the back of the couch to wrap himself in. He tossed one corner of it around Kim, then tucked his head against his neck.
The warmth of his breath against Kim’s skin. The tickle of his moustache. Kim wrapped his arm around Harry, who leaned completely into the touch like butter melting into bread. Kim felt a strong surge of—of something.
Of protectiveness. Of trust. Of this is yours, to keep and hold and take care of. Of this is a place to let your walls down, and to learn how to let them down again when your trust is inevitably broken.
He felt the wet kisses that Harry left on his collarbone, little whiskery things on his skin before Harry finally dropped his head onto Kim’s lap, pulling the blanket with him to rest his hand against Kim’s thigh.
The game devolved beyond loss and into something banal. Kim drew a hand absentmindedly across Harry’s cheek, then lost it in his hair.
This, he supposed, was why he kept leaving his things over here.
With his free hand, he grabbed his mug to take a sip of tea. It was barely hot, cool enough to take a deep slurp from. The noise reached Harry in some sort of wave—Kim could feel his attention spike—
PERCEPTION (HEARING) – Behind you. What’s that?
KIM KITSURAGI – The man drinks from his mug, the one you poured for him almost an hour ago. The mug of tea. *His mug of tea.*
INTERFACING – Remind you of something?
FORGOTTEN MUG – Hey! Over here! In the kitchen!
VISUAL CALCULUS – It would take thirty seven seconds to get up from your current position to—
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – Don’t listen to the calculator. Could you even *imagine* getting up right now? With Kim’s hands in your hair? You’re drooling, Harry. You’ll never get comfortable again if you get up right now.
SUGGESTION – But if, for example, you make a case for the good Lieutenant to get up for you…
“... Kim?”
Kim blinked the strange thoughts away. Harry looked up to Kim, eyes big, almost pouting. It was the worst pleading act Kim had ever seen. It embarrassed him to imagine Harry pulling this face anywhere else. To remember when he had.
To realize that it still pulled at his affections.
“Yes, Coach?” Kim tried to keep a straight face, but couldn’t help the flutter of his lips. Harry’s pouting deepened to an impossible degree.
“Do you love me?”
Kim tucked a strand of hair behind Harry’s ear. His nails dragged across the soft, warm skin there.
“More than anything in the world.”
Harry’s face froze—the look of surprise in his eyes, paired with the dramatics of his expression. The way it melted into something both uncertain and very, very sure—it surprised Kim right back. A deep well of commitment that he would have to learn to wade in.
This wasn’t the love of romantic comedies from the 40s. It wasn’t the love from across the river, where thin and beautiful men and women took each other out tonight for tiny dinners with lit candles. It wasn’t a litter of rose petals on a queen sized bed.
And yet. Kim maintained eye contact, neither backing down nor qualifying what he had said. Harry’s mouth was slightly ajar, rewriting potential futures. A list that had not been made available to him.
This isn’t a game that’s published in the papers. Kim didn’t know the score, yet. All there was were the players, and the plays in between.
He smiled down to Harry, a hand on his cheek.
“But I’m not getting up for you. Get it yourself.”
Harry groaned, but a smile cracked through his expression.
The Stormers lost, twenty two to thirty four. Somewhere in the kitchen, a mug of tea cooled to room temperature.