“Hot chocolate, please, if you still have any.”
Troy disappeared down the corridor. Alone in the living room surrounded by all the icons of memory, JD felt out of place. He got up from the couch and paced the length of the room, then walked to the kitchen.
Troy was filling the kettle, and the shuddering noise of the substandard plumbing concealed the sound of JD’s shoes on the linoleum floor, patterned like tiles. JD went to the cupboard and found the cocoa powder, sugar, and chamomile tea where they’d always been, everything unchanged apart from the thin layer of dust that had accrued on the box of cocoa in his absence.
JD reached past Troy and placed them down on the counter beside the kettle. Troy turned and started, then pulled away.
“Could you just— Could you wait in the living room?”
JD was jarred out of the false reality he had slipped into without effort—the old reality where he and Troy shared a kitchen, shared a bed, shared so much of themselves. The sad slant to Troy’s eye brought him sharply to the awkward present.
“I’m sorry, I can go,” JD said.
“I don’t want you to go, I just need a minute,” Troy said, with his eyes stuck fast to the ground.
JD went back to the living room and sat on the edge of the couch, hands pressed to his knees, ready to push himself up and leave at any moment. He took out his phone and brought up his residential settings. He scrolled down to the entry marked “Our Apartment,” and uncoupled from the system with a cold stone of sadness resting in the middle of his chest. The apartment controls faded from his vision. Now he was just another guest.
A few minutes later, Troy returned with two steaming mugs. He placed JD’s down on the coffee table and sat at the furthest end of the other couch—as far from JD as he could get without phase-shifting through the wall and into his neighbor’s apartment.
JD blew on his hot chocolate and took a sip. It burnt the tip of his tongue, the buds there instantly rough and rigid.
“I’m sorry,” JD said again. “I don’t know what I expected when I decided to come over.”
Troy shook his head. “It took a long time to adjust to being alone here; maybe I’m still not used to it.”
“I wouldn’t have come if I’d realized …” JD stopped himself, uncertain of how to finish the thought. “I still want us to be friends.”
“So do I … in theory.”
“Maybe next time we’ll meet on neutral territory,” JD said lightly. He smiled, but Troy’s face stayed stony.
“What were you doing with Soo-hyun?”
“It’s a job. If we pull it off I’ll—”
“That’s not what I meant. How can you trust them after last time?” He nodded toward JD’s synovitic knee, as though he could see the slivers of shrapnel still embedded there, migrating further with each passing month. “Sometimes I think I’m angrier at them than you are.”
“They’re family.”
“And? You know how much of my family I had to cut out of my life, and they never put me in hospital.”
“Soo-hyun doesn’t have anyone else.”
“That’s not your fault.”
JD didn’t respond. He sipped his cocoa, eyes stuck fast to the mug in his hands.
“Jules, I just want you to be happy,” Troy said. “I don’t understand your repo work, but you enjoy it, and somehow it pays the bills, so that’s fine. But this ‘job’? Whatever it is; get out before you get hurt, again. Hurt or worse.” Troy scrunched up his nose and blinked, stifling tears.
The back of JD’s throat ached with the buildup of sympathetic tears. He put his mug back on the coffee table. “With how much the job pays, I’ll be able to get the surgery I need. I’ll be able to move Mom to a better building.”
“They would still give you that job at the university, if you asked.”
JD shook his head. “The university” was always Troy’s answer, even when his own job security was tenuous at best. “That’s your world, it’s not mine.”
“But it could be.”
“The only reason I took that job in the first place was to be close to you.” JD stood, plundering every reserve of self-control he had to stop himself wincing, to hide the pain. “I should go.”
“Jules.”
“I’m sorry; I should have at least called first.”
“Jules, sit down, finish your drink.” Troy leaned forward, cup pressed between both hands, his face held over the still-steaming tea. He sighed.
“I want to be angry at Soo-hyun, but I can’t.” JD sat and took a swig of his cocoa, and felt the sweet sediment drift over his tongue. He swallowed. “They have my dad’s lighter.”
Troy rolled his eyes. “Hence the smoke.”
JD chewed the inside of his mouth and nodded. “I can’t remember his face, you know. I mean, I’ve seen photos, and I remember the photos, but I don’t have any clear memory of his face. I just remember him smoking, constantly, and how cool I thought it was, how much I liked the smell of tobacco on his hands. I don’t remember him with Mum at all—I guess I was too young when he left her. But I remember him and me and Soo-hyun, and sometimes Soo-hyun’s mom, and the two of us kids fighting over who got to sit in the front of the car with Dad.
“I hated Soo-hyun back then, blamed them for everything, like it was them who tore my family apart, not Dad. But I can’t hate them now. They’ve been trying so hard to change.”
“Not hard enough. Look, you don’t need to hate them, just hold them accountable.”
JD drained his mug, put it back on the coffee table, and pushed it away from the edge, pointing its handle inward. “You’re right, I just don’t know if I can.” He stood again. “Thanks for the drink.”
“You don’t have to go, JD; stay here on the couch.”
“Slept on Mum’s
