Chapter Text
Leorio’s phone is dead.
It’s no surprise, really. His phone has been on its last legs for a while now. His roommate Zepile and best friend Senritsu have been nagging him for months to buy one of those battery charger packs to carry around, but it’s an expense that he can’t justify at the moment. Living in New York City is already a constant hemorrhage of cash, and forking over $30 on a hunk of metal that will give his phone a few extra minutes of juice isn’t worth it.
Not that it isn’t a hassle, though. Because of his ailing phone, Leorio is always taking the wrong subway line and forgetting what time he’s allowed to visit Pietro at the hospital and missing calls from debt collectors. The apartment he shares with Zepile is constantly out of toilet paper and dish soap, because Zepile can’t remind him to replenish their stock when he’s out and about. It’s a real pain in the ass.
And if Leorio lived in a city where people were just a little bit friendlier, then it wouldn’t be such an issue. Maybe in the suburbs, bartenders and cafe owners and pharmacists wouldn’t mind if people sat quietly in the corner of a room charging their phones. They would understand that it was a normal component of twenty-first century living. They wouldn’t scold people. They wouldn’t treat it like a crime to plug something into to an outlet for ten minutes.
But apparently that’s too much to ask for in Manhattan, because currently Leorio is locked in an fierce argument with an irate barista at Daily Beans.
“For Christ’s sake! I’ll come back and buy a coffee later, I promise. I just need to charge it for two minutes!”
“Sir, you’ll have to leave the premises at once. It’s company policy. Customers are forbidden from accessing the outlets without purchasing a beverage. You’re disturbing the other customers,” the barista huffs, glaring up at him.
“Look, I don’t have any money on me. Sue me! I’m pretty sure it’s not illegal to not buy something at a place!”
“It’s company policy,” the barista repeats stubbornly. “I don’t understand why this is so difficult for you.”
Leorio adjusts his glasses and peers down his nose at the guy. He’s a good head shorter and about seventy pound lighter than Leorio, but he’s tensed up and ready to fight like a boxer. He shakes his feathery blond bangs out of his intense eyes, tapping his foot against the tiled floor.
“Am I bothering you?” Leorio calls towards the handful of customers buried in their laptops. “Is me using this outlet really bothering anyone? Huh? Is it ruining your day?”
In true New York fashion, the other customers pretend not to hear him, except for a pink-haired girl slurping at a milkshake who pulls out her cell phone and starts dialing.
“It’s under control,” the barista snaps at the girl, and she pouts and puts her phone away. “Sir, if you won’t leave, I’ll have to remove you by force,” he continues, rolling up the sleeves of his white button-down shirt and untying his apron.
“Are you kidding me? You’re gonna kick my ass for charging my phone?” Leorio spits. “For Christ’s sake. You know what? Fine. I don’t even want your shitty coffee. It’s worse than the bodega stuff! I’ll go to Starbucks instead!”
He yanks his charger out of the wall and pockets his phone, breathing hard through his nose. The barista makes an outraged noise and stalks back to the register, muttering darkly under his breath.
“Asshole,” Leorio hisses to himself as he leaves the cafe and shoves through the crowded sidewalk outside. “What a prick. What is wrong with people like that?”
He continues to grumble all the way home on the subway, earning himself alarmed looks from nearby passengers.
It’s late March, and it’s one of those mockingly beautiful spring afternoons that always happen when you’re having a terrible day. Golden daffodils are blooming in the park. Billowy white clouds drift across a warm blue sky. A light breeze shakes the tender green buds of the ash trees lining the avenues. Everyone looks windswept and hopeful. New pairs of tennis shoes are are still crisp and white, unsullied by months of summer thunderstorms and overflowing muddy sewers. Even the garbage piling up on the curb doesn’t smell too bad yet. But Leorio is determined to be in a shitty mood.
When he gets back to the apartment, he’s in the mood to kvetch. Tossing his keys onto the kitchen counter with a clatter, he grabs a beer out of the fridge and wanders into Zepile’s studio.
Technically their cramped Chinatown apartment is a three-bedroom, but it’s just Zepile and Leorio living here. The third bedroom is devoted to Zepile’s enormous collection of artwork and supplies. The only furniture in here is a sagging yellow couch and a small table covered with plaster splatters and jars of murky paintbrush water. Half-finished canvases are stacked in piles in the corners of the room, and every surface is coated with a fine dusting of powder from Zepile’s sculpture work.
Today Zepile is hard at work finishing a life-size replica of the Mona Lisa. It’s a stunningly accurate replication. Zepile has an uncanny knack for copying artwork; it keeps him busy and well-paid but creatively unfulfilled.
“What’s this one for?” Leorio asks, gesturing with his beer towards the painting. “Another casino in Atlantic City?”
“Bingo!” Zepile says grimly, carefully adding details to the trees in the background. “They’re so goddamn tacky in New Jersey. Who do they think they’re fooling, exactly? Nobody’s gonna believe that some shithole on the beach owns the Mona Lisa. It’s in the Louvre. Everyone knows that.” He rolls his eyes and squeezes a lump of brown paint onto his palette. “It’s so dumb.”
“I mean, if you’re dumb enough to go to a casino in Atlantic City, you might not know about the Louvre,” Leorio points out, taking a long gulp of beer. “They paying you well?”
“Duh. Big bucks. Like I said, casino. At the rate I’ve been getting commissions lately, I’m never gonna have time to work on my solo show.”
“The one with all the doll heads? And the, um, thing with the nude models? And the broken dishwasher that plays the Billy Joel songs?
“Yep. I really think the MOMA might be interested!”
Zepile finishes painting the Mona Lisa’s left eyebrow and moves onto the folds of her dark gown. “I just need one solid month of really digging into it, you know? It’s so close to coming together.” He clenches his fist for emphasis.
“Ah,” Leorio nods, privately wondering how Zepile would be able to tell when the thing was done. “Cool, man.” He finishes his beer and lobs it into the overflowing waste basket in the corner. “Wanna grab something to eat?”
“Sure. One sec. Lemme just do her other ear real quick.”
While Zepile finishes up, Leorio drifts around the apartment, picking at junk mail and old piles of school work. His stacks of homework are gathering dust. Sighing, he flips through an essay he did last October about advances in late-stage oncology treatment.
He remembers staying up for three days straight to finish that one. He had been delirious with fatigue, but the research was so satisfying to complete. He earned a 98% on it.
“Ready?” Zepile says from behind him, and he drops the essay guiltily. “Where to? Dim sum?”
“Sure. Golden Dynasty?”
“Sounds great. I’m fucking starving. Painting that stupid dress took all day,” Zepile complains, buttoning up his coat. Leorio throws him a sorrowful expression and rubs his thumb and index finger together.
“You know what this is, Zep?”
“What?”
“I’m playing the world’s tiniest violin for you, jerk. At least you have a job!”
Zepile laughs, chagrined.
“Ah, shut up. You’re right. But shut up.”
As always, the restaurant is completely packed. Big families sit clustered together at the enormous round tables, ordering platter after platter of aromatic pork buns and shrimp dumplings. Frazzled waiters dart around carrying impossibly heavy trays of food and shrieking orders in Mandarin into their headsets.
Leorio and Zepile are shuttled towards a small table near the back and poured cups of steaming jasmine tea. When the carts come around, they each pick out a couple of plates to share. Leorio likes the green tea duck crepes, and Zepile favors the pan-fried beef wontons. They’re both so hungry that they eat in silence for a while, dunking the oily dumplings in chili oil and wolfing them down.
“How’s Pietro doin’?” Zepile asks through a mouthful of rice. “You said he got another surgery yesterday?”
Leorio chews his bite of vinegary mustard greens for longer than necessary.
“Yeah, they went in and tried to take out more of the bigger tumor in his left lung.” He takes a sip of tea. “It’s...well. It’s not...”
The corners of his mouth pull down, and he finds himself briefly unable to continue. “Not great.”
“You want a beer?” Zepile asks, flagging down a passing waitress. “Let’s have another beer, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Um,” Zepile continues once they’ve procured two lukewarm bottles of Heineken, “are you gonna be able to, uh. I mean. I know it’s rough, but, do you think you’ll have the, um, the March...”
He trails off, looking horribly uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, man, but Mrs. Chen called twice today. I’d spot you again, but I’m broke until I finish the Mona Lisa.”
Leorio feels himself flush from his hairline to his toes. Their tiny 89-year-old landlady was absolutely terrifying on the phone, but luckily for Leorio (and unluckily for Zepile), Mrs. Chen only spoke Cantonese, which Zepile had picked up from his grandmother.
“God. I’m sorry. Yeah. O-of course. I’ll—I’ll figure something out.”
Zepile nods, squirming in his seat. “For sure. I know how it is. I just—”
“No, fuck, of course. I’m really sorry it’s so late.”
They fall silent and poke at their sauce-covered plates, both too embarrassed to make eye contact.
When a waitress comes by with orange slices and fortune cookies, they leave a pile of cash on the table and step back outside into the blustery March evening.
“You ever been to that place Daily Beans by the hospital?” Leorio asks as they walk home, each carrying a greasy bag of leftovers. “That espresso bar on 16th?”
Zepile lights a cigarette and frowns.
“Um...the one with the Japanese owners? And they’re really snobby? I used to go when I was dating that nurse chick at NYU.”
“Oh, right.” Leorio plucks the cigarette from Zepile’s paint-stained fingers and takes a long drag. “Is it Japanese? I figured it was Italian.”
“No, the family that owns it is definitely Japanese. They import all the beans specially from Tokyo or something. Why?”
“Man. This one guy they have working at the register is such a dick. I went in to charge my phone for ten seconds and he chewed me out for not buying anything. He was literally ready to fight me. Over a phone charger!”
“God. New Yorkers are the worst. What did you say?”
“Eh, I told him the coffee was worse than the bodega and that I’d go to Starbucks instead. And then I left.”
Zepile snorts with laughter, finishing his cigarette and flicking it into the street.
“Look out, everybody! We got a real tough guy over here!”
“Oh, cut it out. I didn’t want to make a scene.”
“Sounds like you already did,” Zepile points out as they approach their apartment building. “Hey, do you mind if I invite Wing and Morel over later? They wanted to watch the Mets game.”
“Yeah, of course. I gotta get going before visiting hours are over anyways,” Leorio replies, handing him his bag of leftovers. “They kick you out earlier in the ICU. Can you put this away for me?”
“Oh, right.” Zepile gives him a searching look, fumbling for his keys in his coat pocket. “Hey, listen. If you...if you need a few more weeks on the March rent, it’s fine. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to Mrs. Chen.”
“Thank you. Zep...I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t sweat it. And hey, tell Pietro to use protection with the nurses,” Zepile says, winking. “See you later, then.”
Leorio laughs weakly and waves goodbye as Zepile unlocks their building door and disappears into the dark entryway.
Heaving a sigh, Leorio half-jogs toward the subway station. It’s about 8, so as long as the trains aren’t too screwed up, he’ll get an hour with Pietro. These days, that’s about all Pietro can handle.
Leorio would stay longer if it were up to him, but he respects his friend’s increasingly frequent demands for privacy. He wants Pietro to still feel like he has some agency. It’s the least he can do. Lung cancer has taken just about everything else away from Pietro.
“He’s a little out of it,” whispers a nurse when Leorio ducks into Pietro’s dark hospital room. “We had to up the Ambien today.”
Leorio glances over at Pietro, who’s listing to one side in bed and moving his hands like he’s underwater.
“Why? He was on 15 milligrams already yesterday.”
“He was very agitated earlier. Trying to get out of bed again. We can’t risk him tearing open the stitches from yesterday.”
“Can you please call me next time you change a dosage?” Leorio asks irritably, flipping through the prescription chart taped to the wall. “I’d like to keep track of everything. For the insurance.”
“We did call, sir,” the nurse says briskly, adjusting Pietro’s feeding tube.
“Really? When?”
“Around 4 pm. It went straight to voicemail.”
Leorio checks his phone. It’s as dead as a doornail. He squeezes his eyes shut.
“Ah. Right. I’m sorry.”
The nurse flashes him an apologetic smile before rushing out of the room.
The hospital is chronically understaffed. In the four months that Pietro’s been in the ICU, dozens of his nurses have quit or transferred to different units. It makes coordinating his care even more complicated.
“Hey,” Leorio says softly, approaching the bedside. “Hey. How are you doing, bud?”
“L’rio,” Pietro rasps, adjusting his oxygen tube and struggling to sit up. He grins drowsily. “Did you see that nurse? She’s hot!”
“Uh huh. Zepile said to remind you to use protection, though. The last thing we need is for you to knock up your ostomy nurse. Gross.”
“Chicks dig the poop hole,” Pietro says with a laugh that quickly turns into a violent cough that shakes his bony shoulders. He spits a trickle of blood into a napkin before turning to look at Leorio again. His dark eyes dance with humor, vivid against his jaundiced skin.
“So. What’s up? Bone any cute girls? Did the Mets lose? Please tell me you have something interesting to talk about. I’ve read this Reader’s Digest four times today and I want to blow my brains out.”
“The Mets play tonight,” Leorio says, scratching his stubbly cheek and sinking into his usual spot on the metal windowsill. “I’ll text you later if they don’t let you watch it. Um. Zepile is making this stupid art thing out of two hundred doll heads, and our apartment is full of headless dolls right now, so the odds of me successfully sleeping with anyone at the moment are very low. Uh...what else. I dunno.”
“Heh. Zep. What a lunatic. Did you talk to the financial aid office people at your school yet?”
Leorio coughs and looks away.
“Oh, they were, uh.” He clears his throat. “No. They’re—closed for spring break right now, I think.”
“You said that two weeks ago. Get a new excuse,” Pietro wheezes. He closes his eyes and leans against the pillows, wincing. “These sutures hurt like a bitch. Can you go ask them for more morphine?”
“Pietro...” Leorio starts, hesitating.
“I barely had any today. And it helps me breathe better.”
“You need to take it easy. You’re too hooked on it.”
“I’ll just ask for more when you leave, you know,” Pietro says churlishly. “You’re not my mom.”
“Yeah, well, I know more about it than you do! Do you want to get addicted to this shit like Michael Jackson and die of an overdose?”
“You should finish med school before you lecture me,” Pietro snaps. “Save it.”
Leorio bites back a scathing retort. Pietro has every right to be pissy, after all.
They sit in annoyed silence for a few minutes. Pietro turns on the TV and clicks through the channels before settling on a rerun of a Yankees game. He turns up the volume so it’s audible over all of the thrumming machinery in the room.
“Oh yeah. I got in a fight in a coffee shop today,” Leorio pipes up after a while, hoping to clear the air. “This guy was such a jerk.”
“Yeah?” Pietro says, brightening. “What happened?”
Leorio launches into a spirited retelling of the event, and Pietro cheers up and cackles appreciatively. The conversation carries them up until 9:15 pm, when the nurse comes back to chide Leorio for staying past visiting hours.
Later, lying in bed with the lights off and the windows open, Leorio thinks about the blond barista.
As maddeningly rude as he was, there was something about the firm set of his mouth and the determined glint in his eyes that makes Leorio’s gut do a strangled backflip. His hands ghost down the plane of his stomach and trail under the waistband of his flannel pajama pants.
Wait. No. What?
He shakes his head, smirking to himself. That’s crazy. No way.
He closes his eyes and sifts through his time-tested memories, settling on a particularly nice encounter in the backseat of a car with a high school girlfriend. Breathing slowly, he remembers the softness of her skin and the warmth of her mouth. Wing and Morel and Zepile are drinking beer in the living room and talking noisily, but Leorio still tries to be completely silent.
When he’s getting close, he suddenly pictures the way that the barista glared up at him with those unsettling eyes, defiant and unafraid. He comes with a sputtering gasp.
Heart pounding, he lays on his back to catch his breath for another moment before rolling onto his side to stare out the window at the moonless sky.
He’s exhausted, but he lies awake until the first orange glow of dawn appears on the black horizon.
“Zep! Dude! Do they all need to be out in the hallway?” Leorio groans, tripping over a pile of twenty or thirty headless dolls scattered across the living room floor. “Jesus Christ. I can’t even find my shoes.”
“Sorry!” Zepile yells back from his studio, ripping the head off of another doll. It comes off with a sickening pop. “I’ll clean ‘em up later, I promise!”
“If you win an award for this, you better share it with me!”
“Only if you’re my pro-bono fancy pants surgeon forever,” Zepile calls, throwing another decapitated doll into the living room. “Watch out! My aim is bad.”
Shaking his head, Leorio finally locates a pair of tennis shoes and sprints out the door.
He’s running late for a noon meeting with Doctor Carroll, Pietro’s pulmonary surgeon. It’s already 11:40 am. The train will take longer than walking the fourteen blocks uptown to the hospital, so Leorio sets off at a brisk pace.
A chilly drizzle is falling. He turns up the collar of his thin denim jacket, scowling and wishing he had worn something warmer. It feels like spring is still eons away. The city is gray and gloomy today, all wet concrete and rumpled pigeons and barren tree limbs.
Having freakishly long legs was a pain on airplanes, but at least it gave Leorio an unusually fast walking pace, even by New York standards, where it was something of a competitive sport to walk as quickly and grumpily as possible. He makes it to the hospital with five minutes to spare, choosing to sprint up the four flights of stairs to the ICU instead of waiting for the rickety elevator.
“Ah, Mister Padakino,” Doctor Carroll greets Leorio when he bursts into Pietro’s room, panting and massaging the stitch in his side. “I hope you’re well.” He offers a limp handshake.
Leorio likes Doctor Carroll, even when he screws up his last name. He’s a sallow-faced Irish guy in his late sixties, and he never beats around the bush like some of the other doctors. He’s looking somber today. Leorio’s stomach lurches with anxiety.
Pietro is half-asleep in bed, nodding off to one side. His breathing is unusually labored today; Leorio watches his chest jerk and convulse with every pained inhale. His face and hands are swollen and puffy, a telltale sign that his blood pressure is high and he’s retaining too much water. They need to up his diuretics, Leorio thinks, frowning.
“Hi, Doctor Carroll. Thanks for meeting with us today,” he says, trying to catch his breath. After the cool weather outside, it’s uncomfortably warm inside the hospital. He dashes a bead of sweat from his temple. “So. How’s it looking?”
“Why don’t we step into my office down the hall?” Doctor Carroll murmurs, casting an eye in Pietro’s direction. “We’ll let him rest.”
“Okay,” Leorio says nervously, and follows him down the busy hallway to his dimly lit office.
He takes a seat in an overstuffed leather chair as Doctor Carroll settles behind his desk.
“I’m afraid I don’t have very good news today,” he begins, fixing Leorio with his icy blue gaze. “Unfortunately, the biopsy did not come back with the results we had hoped for. The tumors have metastasized even further than we expected.”
It’s not a surprise, but Leorio still feels like he’s been punched in the gut. He swallows hard over his dry throat and stares at his hands in his lap. The ticking of the clock on the wall becomes deafeningly loud.
“Okay. So now what? What next? When will we hear back from the Pfitzer trial?”
Doctor Carroll sighs and steeples his fingers together. “Leroy—”
“It’s Leorio.”
“My apologies, Leorio. Regarding the trial, we heard back this morning. I believe one of the nurses tried to leave a message with you, but—”
“They didn’t take him,” Leorio finishes, closing his eyes. “Damn it. Did they even say why?” He breathes through his nose and tries not to let his temper overwhelm him, but he wants to kick something. “I don’t understand why they can’t take him. If it’s experimental anyways, what’s the harm in trying?”
“The representative that I spoke with explained to me that they aren’t taking stage 4 cancer patients at this time. It’s out of our control at this point. Leorio, we...need to discuss what’s best for Pietro’s quality of life moving forward,” Doctor Carroll continues, his voice gentle but firm. “We may want to discuss palliative care.”
“No,” Leorio says at once, “no, we can’t—we can’t give up yet, not yet.” He clenches his jaw. “He’s barely out of surgery. Give him a week or two to recover, at least. A month. He needs time to heal up. Then he can start another round of chemo and radiation.”
“Palliative care is reversible at any time. If the patient wishes, they can always resume proactive treatment. But it may make Pietro more comfortable in the meantime.”
“That sounds great and all, but I know what palliative care is,” Leorio says bluntly, getting to his feet and brushing past the desk. “We’re not there yet. I’ll talk it over with Pietro. Thanks for your time.”
He leaves the office without another word, quietly seething. He’s too upset to go see Pietro right away, so he paces around the waiting room for ten minutes, trying to calm down.
It all comes down to money, obviously. Just like everything else.
Leorio would bet his right arm that the drug trial would have taken them if Pietro’s insurance hadn’t run out. And he’s sure that the hospital is pressuring Doctor Carroll to kick Pietro out of the expensive ICU and ship him off to the hospice ward. It makes sense from a logistical standpoint; the ICU is designed for short-term stays. A single day costs a staggering $15,000, and that’s not including prescriptions and surgeries.
When Leorio thinks about how many loans he’s taken out, four months into Pietro’s stay here at Mount Sinai, he wants to throw up. But what else is he supposed to do? Pietro has nobody. His mom died when he was in middle school, and his alcoholic dad fell off the map years ago. When he started coughing up blood nine months ago, there was no question that Leorio would help figure it out. After all, they’d been best friends since kindergarten.
Leorio chugs a paper cup of water from the nurse’s station and returns to the room. When he takes his usual position on the windowsill, Pietro stirs and rolls over to face him.
“I wan’ an espresso,” he says hopefully. “The hospital coffee is terrible. Do you think you could go get me a real one?”
“Um. Hold on. Did Doctor Carroll already talk to you?” Leorio asks, keeping his tone carefully neutral. “About how the biopsy went? And the drug trial?”
Pietro pretends not to hear him. “Leoriooooo. Please?”
“Hold on. Did he talk to you?”
“Yes. I don’t wanna talk about it,” Pietro says very quietly, his face darkening. “Not right now. Next question.”
“Pietro...”
“Not now. Espresso? Por favor?”
Leorio chews on a hangnail, deliberating.
“Um. There’s a Starbucks down the block. Just coffee? You want anything else?”
“Oh,” Pietro sighs, looking put upon, “well, if it’s just Starbucks, then never mind.” He rolls over in bed. “I was thinking about that place Daily Beans, but...no, no, don’t worry, just deny the guy with two months to live a real espresso. Imagine how bad you’re gonna feel when I die.”
“Oh my god, Pietro, you are the most annoying person alive,” Leorio complains, but he’s chuckling. “Fine. Good grief. Let’s make a deal. I’ll get you your fancy espresso if you can get that night nurse’s number for me.”
“Which one? Sandy?”
“Is that the redhead?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, her,” Leorio nods, hopping down from the windowsill and stretching his long arms overhead. “Okay, so just a black espresso? Anything else?”
“Nah, that’s cool. Muchas gracias! You’re a prince!” Pietro calls after Leorio as he leaves the room. “My hero!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Leorio grumbles, waving back at him. “Save it for when Sandy’s around.”
As he rides the elevator back into the lobby, he realizes what Pietro said back in the room.
Daily Beans. Oh no. He can’t go back there. That barista will kill him. He’ll have to find somewhere else.
He gets out his phone to look up other coffee shops in the area, but, as always, it’s about to die, its battery hovering feebly at 1%. Opening up his maps app will sap its remaining life immediately, and he needs to save some juice in case Mrs. Chen or Zepile or somebody from the hospital calls.
“God damn it,” he sighs, exiting the hospital and trudging unhappily towards Daily Beans.
Maybe the blond barista won’t be working. Nobody works full-time at coffee shops, right? Everyone does it to supplement their student loans or rock bands or aspiring acting careers or whatever. Maybe today is his day off. It’ll be fine.
When he arrives at Daily Beans, Leorio skulks up to the polished glass storefront and tries to get a glimpse inside. It’s one of those painfully hip modern cafes filled with minimalist furniture and exotic jungle plants, and a large ficus tree in the windowsill is blocking his view of the counter. A pink-haired girl seated at the bar notices him and raises her eyebrows, and he hurriedly straightens up and pretends to fix his hair in the reflection. As far as he can tell, there’s no sign of the blond barista, so he squares his shoulders and walks inside.
“Two espressos, please,” he mutters to the burly man working the register. “Black. No room for cream.”
“Speak up, sir,” the cashier intones, twirling the end of his impressive hipster mustache. Leorio would bet anything that this guy lived in Williamsburg. “Can’t hear you. What’s that you want?”
“Espressos,” Leorio repeats nervously, glancing around, “two, black, please, no room for—”
“Basho, I’ll take over from here,” says a familiar voice, and Leorio cowers instinctively. “You can go on break.”
“Wonderful. Thanks, bro,” says the mustachioed cashier gratefully, ripping off his apron and disappearing into the kitchen.
“Look. About the other day,” Leorio begins as the blond barista approaches the cash register. “I’m really sorry, I was just, um, having a bad day, but if I could just get those espressos to go, then I’ll be out of here in a second.”
He yanks a wad of crumpled cash out of his pocket and thrusts it onto the counter without bothering to count it, already turning away. To his surprise, he hears a soft exhale of laughter.
“It’s on the house. Don’t worry,” the blond barista says. He pauses to fire up the gleaming espresso machine. It rumbles to life with a hiss of hot steam. “I, uh, may have gotten carried away as well. I may have...gone overboard with my interpretation of our company’s policies. I regret my behavior. Please accept my sincere apologies.”
Leorio blinks, disoriented by his overly formal manner.
“Oh. It’s—er—it’s really not a big deal. I was being a jerk, too.”
“Perhaps we both let our tempers get the better of us,” the barista says, handing Leorio two steaming cups of rich-smelling espresso. His lips are twisted into a rueful half-smile that Leorio can’t help but return. Their eyes meet, and they study each other for a few seconds.
Leorio has never seen eyes like that; wide and glittering with a feline slant to them, their irises unnaturally dark and flat, almost black. Something in his gaze is so intense and direct that Leorio’s palms start to itch.
Whoa.
He intends to thank the barista for the free coffees and get back to the hospital, but when he opens his mouth, what comes out is:
“What’s your name, anyway?”
“Kurapika.”
“Kurapika,” Leorio echoes. The name feels foreign and strange on his tongue. “Kurapika. Where’s that from, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“My parents were rather...unorthodox,” Kurapika says, a shadow flitting across his face. “What’s your name?”
“Leorio. Leorio Paladiknight.”
“Well, Mr. Leorio Paladiknight, it was nice to meet you on better terms today,” Kurapika says, brushing his bangs out of his wide eyes. “Enjoy the espresso. Newly imported beans.”
“Thanks,” Leorio replies, grinning. “Nice to meet you, again, too, Kurapika.”
“Why are you so cheerful?”
“Hm?”
“You’re smiling like an idiot,” Pietro accuses, tossing his empty espresso cup into the trash. “What happened?”
Leorio sips his espresso slowly, savoring the last few drops.
“Oh. I dunno. It’s—it’s a nice day.”
Pietro glances out the window. Sheets of rain are falling from the slate gray sky.
“Uh huh.”
“It’s good, right? The coffee?” Leorio says, changing the subject.
“Yeah. It’s definitely gonna dribble out my poop hole in a minute, though.” Pietro probes cautiously at his ostomy bag, wrinkling his nose. “This thing is the worst. Like, it is literally the worst thing I can imagine. Why does God hate me so much?”
“Because you keep asking the nurses their bra sizes.”
“That was for scientific research! I was taking a survey.”
“And because you’re a perv,” Leorio reminds him, flicking his arm through the blankets.
“True. That too. I’m so goddamn bored in here, though. Can you blame me?”
“Nah. I guess not.”
Over the next five days, Leorio returns to Daily Beans every afternoon, but to his disappointment, he doesn’t see Kurapika again.
He considers asking the other employees about it, but the idea strikes him as too creepy. It occurs to him that Kurapika might have been fired. It wouldn’t be surprising, given his behavior on their first meeting. The notion makes Leorio disproportionately upset.
Pietro is in a bad mood this week. He’s petulant and uncommunicative with Leorio, and he lashes out at the nurses, snapping at them when they wake him up to take his vitals and administer drugs. Leorio checks on him every morning before retreating to the coffee shop, where he sits in the back and skims through his old medical textbooks. He drinks so much espresso that his eyelids start to twitch.
The debt collectors have been calling more frequently lately. Leorio knows it’s getting out of hand. He stopped keeping track a few months ago. Between the federal loans for his previous year of school and the money he borrowed from four different credit unions after Pietro’s health insurance ran out, the total must be mind-boggling by now. Even if he eventually goes back to school and gets a six-figure job as a doctor somewhere down the line, he’ll still be financially fucked for years. Decades. Maybe for the rest of his life.
He also knows that the longer it goes on, the worse it will get, but he can’t face it just yet. Once Pietro is in the clear, he’ll have to come to terms with the damage he’s done to his credit and begin the long process of digging himself out of this deep hole. But for now, when the phone rings, he immediately silences it and stuffs it back into his backpack before returning to his textbooks, a miserable knot of anxiety churning in his stomach.
On the sixth day, Leorio gets a call from his friend Senritsu as he’s sitting in the cafe. He almost silences the call out of habit, but when he sees her name flashing across the screen, his heart lifts. He puts his saucer over his mug of coffee before stepping outside to take the call.
“Hi! How are ya?”
“Hello, Leorio,” Senritsu says in her melodious voice. “Are you busy tonight?”
“Nope! What’s up?”
“My Juilliard flute ensemble is performing at the Rose Hall this evening, and the after party reception is short-staffed by a caterer. Would you like the job? It pays $125 for two hours of cocktail serving, and I can get you into the concert for free.”
“That would be amazing! Thanks! Do I need a tux?”
“We’ll have one for you there. It may be a little short, but it will work. Meet me outside of Lincoln Center at 7 pm tonight?”
“Yeah! Thank you so much! I really need work right now, this is great.”
“I’m glad,” Senritsu says. “See you tonight, then.”
Leorio punches the air in victory before going inside and sitting back down. Catering gigs were great. You got to eat all the leftover appetizers, and sometimes the bartenders would send you home with extra bottles of champagne.
Finishing the rest of his coffee in one gulp, Leorio returns his attention to his textbook with renewed vigor. He looks up hopefully to scan the room for a blond head, but Kurapika is nowhere to be found.
Senritsu is an amazing flute player. Her tone is as sweet and pure as the liquid tolling of cathedral bells at sunset. When she played, even the most jaded New York critics closed their eyes and sighed with pleasure. Because of her busy teaching schedule, she only performed once or twice a year, but every time she did, the concerts sold out immediately.
Admittedly, Leorio can’t sit through too much classical music. It’s not that he doesn’t care for it, but listening to hours of quiet music in a dark room surrounded by half-asleep elderly people was a powerful sedative. His mind usually starts to wander before the first movement ends, and he finds himself peering around the dimly lit theater, hunting for interesting-looking people in the crowd.
Tonight is no different. To Leorio’s disappointment, Senritsu isn’t actually performing tonight; she’s conducting her quintet of elite flute students. From his seat near the exit in the back, he can barely see her diminutive form onstage. His view is almost completely blocked by an old lady’s enormous fur hat.
“Honestly,” he grumbles to another tuxedoed caterer to his right, “why would you ever wear something that stupid to a concert?”
The old lady hears him and whips around in her seat, clutching her hat and glaring. Leorio clears his throat and pretends to drop his program on the floor, ducking down in his seat to hide from her beady eyes. The other caterer stuffs a fist in his mouth to stifle his laughter.
The flute quintet is definitely great, but Leorio is growing restless and fidgety. The tuxedo is too small, he has a cramp in his leg, and his stomach is growling. He wishes they would hurry up and finish so he could start serving drinks and stealing appetizers. The piece they’re playing now is something avant-garde and squealing. It sounds less like music and more like a chorus of songbirds getting hit by a train. Senritsu always did have a soft spot for left-of-center composers.
Sighing, Leorio glances around the hall. The Rose Hall is a beautiful place, with high arched ceilings and intricately carved woodworking. Glittering crystal chandeliers cast a soft glow over the faces of the crowd. Since this is a student performance, the audience is fairly diverse tonight. There’s the usual assortment of rich uptown patron-of-the-arts types dripping in jewelry and smelling strongly of perfume and cigars, but he also spots some young Juilliard students scattered here and there. Many of them are Chinese and Korean, and some of the girls are dressed in vibrant silk hanboks and cheongsams. Other audience members are clearly Midwestern tourists, sporting fanny packs and excitedly snapping pictures with their overlarge cameras. Leorio snorts as he watches a particularly dorky couple accidentally poke a well-dressed Russian guy in the rib cage with their selfie stick. He looks aghast and swats it away as the wife apologizes silently.
The crowd bursts into wild applause, and Leorio jumps a little. He hadn’t even noticed that the piece had ended. Startled, he starts clapping loudly as Senritsu and the students take a bow before launching into the next selection, something dreamy and French.
The best seats in the house are up in the private balconies. Sometimes you could see celebrities up there, dressed in dark glasses and overcoats to avoid paparazzi attention. Once, at one of Senritsu’s solo recitals, Leorio was certain he saw Kim Kardashian sitting with David Bowie. When he told Zepile and Pietro about it later, they didn’t believe him.
He cranes his neck to see who’s up there tonight: a large group of Japanese businessmen in black suits, all listening intently and sitting up perfectly straight. Curiosity satisfied, Leorio starts to turn back towards the stage, until a glimmer of blond hair catches his eye.
The music is swelling into a crescendo. The audience around him is rapt. Senritsu conducts with her eyes reverently closed, waving her arms in sweeping, expressive gestures. Pulse racing, Leorio shifts in his seat to get a better view. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and squints, wondering if it was just a trick of the dim lighting.
Nope. It’s definitely the blond barista. Kurapika. He’s standing behind the Japanese guys, looking severe and elegant in a slim-fitting black suit. His face is unsmiling as his dark eyes sweep across the crowd. At one point he turns to mutter something to one of the businessmen, and Leorio sees the pink-haired girl from Daily Beans sitting in the very back of the balcony. Tonight her hair is curled into a dramatic pouf, and she’s wearing a complicated lavender mini dress. The way that the fabric is folded around her tiny frame makes Leorio think of the origami cranes that Zepile leaves scattered around their apartment. After a minute or two, Kurapika steps in front of the girl again, blocking her from view.
“D’you have a program?” Leorio murmurs to the caterer next to him. “How many songs are left?”
The guy leans over to whisper into Leorio’s ear in a noisy rush of breath.
“I think it’s almost over, but this is a really long one.”
“Thanks,” Leorio hisses back. He quietly unfolds his long legs from the seat and stands to leave. He’s in the middle of a row, and he has to squeeze his way past a dozen affronted old people before he reaches the exit.
“Sorry, sorry,” he mutters as several old ladies struggle to tuck in their knees. “Almost out. Sorry!”
When he reaches the door and bursts into the lobby, he releases the breath he was holding and tugs at his constricting bow tie. He doesn’t have a plan, exactly. He just knows that he wants to talk to Kurapika again, and if he waits up here, maybe he can catch him on his way out.
There’s a curious tingle of nervous energy building in his chest. Glancing around the empty lobby, he darts up the velvet-covered staircase towards the balcony.
A very old man working as an usher is sitting at the top of the stairs, blocking the door to the balcony seats. He’s dozing off, emitting quiet snuffling snores that ruffle his shock of fluffy white hair with every exhale. A stream of drool drips from his open mouth onto his corduroy jacket.
Leorio tiptoes forward and shakes him gently. He jerks awake with a snort.
“Mmm—whazzat?” He blinks dazedly and smacks his lips. “Who’s there?”
“Hey there,” Leorio whispers, “why don’t you let me take over? You can go take a nap.”
The man peers down his bulbous nose at Leorio, squinting in confusion.
“Who are you, again?”
“I’m another usher. Don’t worry,” Leorio says in a reassuring tone. “They, uh, sent me up here to take over your shift.”
“Well,” the old man muses, getting stiffly to his feet, “I suppose I can let you handle things from here. You said I can take a nap?”
“Yep. Go down to the box office and tell them that Paladiknight sent you,” Leorio replies as the man totters away. “Ask for Rosa.”
Rosa was a cute secretary who worked the ticket booth, and she had nursed a crush on Leorio ever since he started to come to see Senritsu perform. She was sweet, and would never turn away a sleepy old usher if he wanted to nap on the office couch.
“Yes, yes,” the old man mutters, waving vaguely back at Leorio as he shuffles towards the elevator. “Rosa.”
Once the old man is out of sight, Leorio sidles up against the balcony door and presses his ear against it. They’re still playing, but the piece sounds like it’s building up towards some kind of final climax. The music ends, and there’s a pregnant pause before the audience erupts into raucous applause and yelling.
“Encore! Encore!”
Leorio straightens up and fixes his bow tie. His heart is pounding in his ears.
When he hears the scraping of chairs and the clacking of dress shoes on marble from inside the balcony, he swings the heavy door open and stands at attention as the men file out, chattering in Japanese and tossing their folded programs onto the floor. Ten, eleven, twelve of the dark-suited men walk by, paying no attention to Leorio as he holds the door, before—
“Psst! Kurapika!” Leorio calls softly, trying to catch his eye as he approaches. “Hey!”
Kurapika, hovering close to the pink-haired girl, doesn’t even look in Leorio’s direction as he brushes past him. The girl glances up at Leorio in vague recognition for a moment before Kurapika places a hand on her back and marches her down the velvet staircase towards the cluster of Japanese men. After another thirty seconds, Kurapika’s blond head has disappeared into the rest of the crowd hurrying down to the lobby.
What the hell?
Leorio leans against the wall, puzzled and deflated.
It was him, right? It definitely was. That golden hair, those strange dark eyes...Leorio has never met anyone who looks remotely similar to Kurapika. There was no way that was a doppelgänger. But why would he ignore him, after being so friendly the other day?
He becomes aware after a few seconds that his phone is ringing in his pocket. He answers it immediately; it’s the catering company. Whoops.
“Is this Leroy? We need you in the kitchen five minutes ago,” comes a flustered voice. “The reception is starting now. Where are you?”
“Shit. Sorry. Be there in ten seconds!”
Hanging up, he sprints towards the service elevators.
An hour later, as Leorio is serving his fourteenth platter of canapés, Senritsu finally extracts herself from her throngs of admirers to come say hello.
The reception is taking place in Dizzy’s, the glass-walled jazz club on the top floor of Lincoln Center that overlooks Columbus Circle and Central Park. It’s one of the best views of the city. The illuminated buildings twinkle against the night sky like constellations. Onstage, a model-beautiful jazz singer in a long red dress is crooning out “My Funny Valentine”, accompanied by a bassist and pianist. Leorio can’t help but notice that they both look pretty bored; plunking away resignedly as the singer bats her lashes and gyrates against the mic stand.
“What’s the matter? You sound unhappy,” Senritsu says by way of greeting, a frown creasing her kind face.
“Oh,” Leorio starts, pausing to offer a tray of trout caviar to a nearby cluster of people, “it’s...it’s not a big deal. Don’t worry. But hey, nice concert! The kids sounded awesome.”
“Thank you. They should have practiced more, to be frank,” Senritsu sighs, adjusting the lapel of her midnight blue velvet blazer. “Rehearsal time is so limited as it is. There’s only so much I can do, as their instructor.”
“Coulda fooled me,” Leorio shrugs, stealing a bite of caviar. “I thought it was great.”
“So who were you sneaking out to see during the last piece?” Senritsu murmurs, taking a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. “I noticed that your heartbeat was conspicuously absent during the Ravel.” She flashes Leorio a faint smile.
“Oh. I had to—use the john.”
Senritsu narrows her eyes. “No you didn’t.”
“No I didn’t,” Leorio admits, flushing. He doesn’t know how she does it, but Senritsu is a human lie detector. You couldn’t get anything past her. “I was—oops, one sec, I’m all out.”
His tray is emptied again. He leaves Senritsu to rush back into the kitchen to restock. Grabbing a plate of miniature desserts, he shoves back through the crowd of mingling concertgoers. He scans the crowd for the millionth time that night, searching for Kurapika, but neither he nor the group of Japanese businessmen are in the room.
He finds Senritsu over by the windows and rejoins her. She’s wearing her noise-cancelling headphones, a sure sign that she’s almost reached her limit for the evening, but when she sees Leorio reappear, she takes them off and smiles.
“Who are you looking for?”
“You, of course.”
“Besides me.”
“Ugh! Fine.” Leorio hands out a few creme brûlées before turning back towards Senritsu. “Do you know anything about the guys that bought out the balcony seats tonight?”
She purses her lips. “Hmm. I can’t recall hearing anything about them. What did they look like?”
“I think they were Japanese. Definitely rich. It looked like a corporate thing.”
“And they’re not here at the reception?”
“Nope. They took off right after the concert ended.”
Senritsu finishes her champagne, shrugging. “I’m not sure, but I can certainly ask around. Sometimes people use false names to reserve seats, through, to avoid attracting attention.”
“Right.”
“Why do you want to know, anyways? What are you up to?”
“Whoops, I’m out of tiramisu,” Leorio says cheerfully, extending the empty platter as proof. “Thanks for a great concert and the gig! Get home safe. Let’s walk around the park soon.”
Senritsu huffs in annoyance, but allows Leorio to kiss her goodbye on both cheeks before replacing her headphones and ambling towards the hidden backstage exit. She’s so small that he loses track of her in the crowd immediately.
It’s 10:07 pm, so his shift is officially over. Before he returns to the kitchen, Leorio pauses in the back of the club to listen to the band for a minute.
Noticing him watching, the singer tosses her long hair and preens a little.
“ You go to my head ,” she sings, subtly hiking up her sequined skirt to reveal an expanse of shimmering tanned skin, “ like the bubbles in a glass of champagne.. .”
She catches his eye and winks.
He gulps, considering. It’s been an awfully long time, and it might take the edge off. Yeah. Maybe this is what he needs...but still.
His mind wanders back to the day in the coffee shop last week, the way Kurapika looked up at him with that lemon-twist smile, the playful arch of his eyebrows...
Well, Mister Leorio Paladiknight, it was nice to meet you on better terms again today.
It’s dumb, this infatuation. It’s just because he’s stressed about money and Pietro and school. That’s all it is; a diversion. He shouldn’t be thinking this way about someone who blatantly ignored him tonight.
Shaking his head, he scans the thinning crowd one last time for Kurapika’s slender figure. When he can’t find him, he glances back at the singer and offers a grin that she instantly returns, blushing, as the bassist thumps out a solo.
“Mind if I smoke?”
“Nah.”
“You want one?”
“No thanks. I...better get going.”
The singer rolls over in bed to face Leorio, pouting.
“Noooo! Stay for breakfast, at least. We can go get bagels. There’s a great place on 70th.”
Leorio turns away and scrabbles around for his discarded tuxedo on the floor. He’s going to be in trouble; there’s a red wine stain down the front of the shirt, and the sleeve is torn from where it got hooked on a doorknob last night in their rush to get into bed. He’ll probably have to pay a fine. You idiot , he tells himself sternly as he pulls on his rumpled pants.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t stay. Thanks for a nice time,” he offers, patting her hand awkwardly. “That was a lot of fun.”
She sits up in bed, the sheet clutched over her chest. “Yeah. Whatever.”
“Look, I—I’m sorry. Let’s get drinks sometime.”
“Uh huh,” she says sullenly, reaching for her cell phone and checking her texts. “That’s what they all say.”
Leorio lets it go. She has a point.
“Okay. Um. I’ll just—let myself out, then.”
She ignores him, lighting a cigarette and staring at her phone. He grabs his wallet and phone from the nightstand and scuttles out of her apartment.
Once he’s outside on the street, he exhales in guilty relief, closing his eyes and relishing the cool morning air on his tired face.
It’s only 7:47 am, and hospital visiting hours don’t start until 9. The hospital is on the way home, so he might as well go see Pietro before going back to the apartment to clean himself up. He heads for the subway, yawning and scratching his stubbly chin.
The hangover hits when he’s on the train. His head starts to pound, his stomach lurches dangerously, and his mouth fills with metallic-tasting saliva. The thought of going straight into the hospital, with its harsh smells of disinfectant and illness, is overwhelming. He needs caffeine and carbohydrates as soon as possible. He leans his head against the rattling window, bemoaning his own stupidity.
His phone is on 1% and is showing 5 missed calls from the same number. He presses play on the first voicemail and listens in trepidation.
“This is the Rochester Credit Union. We are are calling today to reach Leorio Paladiknight regarding your recent unpaid loan. If you do not make a payment by March 17th, your loan will be regarded as delinquent, and—”
His phone dies with a morose electronic whimper. He puts his head between his knees, groaning. A homeless man across the row gazes at him sympathetically.
“Hey, brother. Whatever it is, it’ll be all right. God bless you.”
Leorio looks up, scrubbing his face. “Thanks.”
“You got any change, my man?”
He pats his pockets, but all he has is crumpled tips from last night that he intends to spend on meals for three days.
“I don’t have anything, I’m sorry. Take care.”
The homeless man grumbles darkly and returns his attention to a bottle of something in a brown paper bag. Leorio closes his eyes and waits for the pounding in his head to subside.
When the train stops at First Avenue, Leorio drags himself out onto the street and heads towards Daily Beans. Thankfully the cafe is open when he arrives, but it’s totally empty. Leorio the only customer, and nobody is at the counter. He bounces on the balls of his feet for a while, staring longingly at the deli case full of croissants and pastries.
The door opens with a jingle. Leorio turns, expecting to see an employee, but it’s a skinny guy in a dark hoodie, staring at him with bloodshot eyes. His movements are erratic and jerky, and he’s muttering to himself and pacing back and forth. Now and then he fingers something in his pants pocket.
Looks like a junkie , Leorio thinks, feeling uneasy. He considers leaving, but the guy’s blocking the door. Besides, damn it, he really wants some coffee, and Pietro was right, the hospital coffee was terrible.
Right as Leorio has decided that he’s going to suck it up and go to a Dunkin’ Donuts down the street, Kurapika appears in the kitchen door with his arms full of coffee beans. He takes one look at Leorio before dropping the beans noisily and rushing out from behind the counter, fists raised.
“What the—”
Before Leorio can register what’s happening, Kurapika is furiously dragging the junkie out of the cafe and hissing something in another language. The guy gulps at the air, his hands scrabbling at Kurapika’s airtight headlock. Once on the sidewalk, they engage in a brief but vicious fight. Leorio sees the flash of a knife.
He gasps and cries out, running up to the glass, but after another moment Kurapika deals a sharp blow to the man’s midsection, and he falls like a rag doll to the curb. Kurapika spits something down at him before dusting off his hands and walking calmly back into the cafe like nothing happened, leaving the man in a limp heap in the gutter.
“My apologies,” Kurapika pants, picking up his apron from the counter and tying it around his waist. “That’s the third time he’s tried that stunt this week. What can I do for you?” He looks up at Leorio, and his eyes widen in recognition. “Oh! It’s you. Hello again.”
“You’re bleeding,” Leorio cries, pointing at a red gash on Kurapika’s left forearm. “Oh my god! We have to get you to the hospital.”
“I’m fine,” Kurapika says. He grabs a paper towel from the bar and holds it to the wound. “What would you like this morning?”
“Are you kidding me? What the fuck was that? Are you okay? Should I call the cops?” Leorio continues, his voice rising in shock. “Oh my god. I can’t believe you just—fought that guy like that. Why did you—”
“He was going for your wallet, and he had a knife. You didn’t notice?”
Leorio blinks in surprise. “Uh.”
“You should be more careful,” Kurapika continues in a stern voice, shaking his bangs out of his eyes. “New York is very dangerous, you know. What would you like today? Espresso?”
He fixes Leorio with a stubborn glare, just like he did the first time.
“Don’t be an idiot. You can’t work with that arm. The hospital is right there. Can I go with you?”
“I’m fine ,” Kurapika insists. “I’m not going to the hospital. It’s just a scratch.”
“Why not? You’re literally bleeding onto the coffee filters. You’re gonna get fired. This is a health code violation for sure. Plus it’s gross.”
“I’ll take it up with my supervisor myself,” Kurapika continues, his mouth going thin. “Espresso? Macchiato?”
“Look,” Leorio says, “I, uh. I get it if you don’t like hospitals, but you need someone to look at that cut. If that guy really was trying to mug me, I owe you one. I’m a...doctor,” he says, blushing through the lie but forging onwards, “so...why don’t you come to my apartment and I’ll fix it up? I live pretty close.”
They stare at each other wordlessly for a minute. A muscle is twitching in Kurapika’s jaw, and there are dark shadows underneath his eyes. A drop of blood rolls down his arm and stains his apron.
“Hmm. You’re rather young to be a doctor,” Kurapika says, the corner of his mouth quirking up, “aren’t you?”
“Am I?” Leorio says, returning Kurapika’s grin. “Well, what I meant to say is that I’m going to be a doctor. I guess I misspoke.”
“Ah. Maybe I wasn’t listening carefully.”
“Which...reminds me,” Leorio continues, his pulse increasing, “did you enjoy the flute concert last night?”
There’s a pause. Outside, the junkie picks himself up from the curb and limps down the street, shooting a murderous scowl through the window at the two of them.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kurapika replies a beat too late. His eyes flicker. “I didn’t go to a concert.”
“Really? You were up in the balcony. I was working as an usher and you walked right by me. Guess you didn’t see me.”
“Hmm. No. I was working last night. You must be mistaken.”
“Working here? At 9 pm?”
“I had the last shift,” Kurapika says fiercely, and he looks so defensive and unhappy that Leorio drops the subject.
“Okay. Guess it was someone else.”
“I guess so.”
The door jingles again, and they both spin around in alarm. A woman pushing a toddler in a stroller is peering inside.
“Um—sorry? Can I order a caramel frappucino for here?”
“We’re closed,” Kurapika says coldly. The woman glances up at the OPEN sign before leaving, shaking her head and muttering under her breath about rude New Yorkers. Leorio watches the whole exchange in bemused silence.
“Well, if you’re not gonna work, are you sure you don’t want to come with me and I’ll slap a bandage on that thing? Or do you have other guys to suplex?
“To what?” Kurapika says, his face going blank.
“Oh, uh....” Leorio clears his throat. Zepile liked to watch wrestling, and that was a term that got yelled a lot during matches. “Um. It’s just a...never mind.”
“Well...I suppose I could...accompany you,” Kurapika says slowly, “if it’s quick.” He takes off his apron and wads it up, storing it underneath the counter.
“It’ll be quick. Do you mind walking? Probably faster than the train this time of day.”
“Walking is fine.”
Kurapika locks the cafe, and they set off towards Chinatown. As they walk, his eyes travel over Leorio, lingering on the wine stained tuxedo shirt and rumpled pants, and his mouth twists into a half-smile.
“Looks like you had a rough morning yourself.”
“Hah. Yeah.”
“It happens to the best of us, I suppose.”
“Speak for yourself. I think I look great,” Leorio jokes, displaying his ripped blazer sleeve with a flourish. Kurapika laughs unexpectedly at that, covering his mouth with a hand, and Leorio feels himself flush.
It’s about a twenty minute walk through the East Village to get to Leorio’s place. As they walk, they make small talk about the familiar landmarks: Katz’s Deli, Rockwood Music Hall, the dozens of 99 cent pizza joints. They start to loosen up. Kurapika chuckles when Leorio trips over a curb, and Leorio makes fun of Kurapika for not knowing the iconic scene in When Harry Met Sally that was filmed in Katz’s.
“Really? The whole ‘I’ll have what she’s having’ thing?” Leorio asks in disbelief as they pass Tompkins Square Park. “Oh man! It’s a great scene. They’re eating these big messy Reubens, and Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm and an old lady turns around and—uh. Not ringing any bells?”
Kurapika shakes his head. “I haven’t seen many movies.”
“Are you one of those people who’s all proud of the fact that they’ve never watched tv?” Leorio groans, rolling his eyes.
“It’s not like that,” Kurapika says lightly, shading his eyes from the morning sun. “I just don’t know much about pop culture.”
When they reach the apartment, Leorio pauses and turns to Kurapika, keys clutched in his hand.
“Okay. So my roommate is, uh. Doing this pretty intense art project at the moment, so...if things are...weird, just know that it’s all him. Not me.”
“Oh. That’s all right.”
“I mean really weird,” Leorio warns, unlocking the front door. They traipse up the dark stairwell, Kurapika’s dress shoes clacking against the wooden steps.
“Hey, Zep?” Leorio calls into the apartment when he opens the door, but it seems like he’s got the place to himself. “Watch where you step,” he cautions Kurapika as they pick their way into the living room. “Anyways, uh. Here it is.”
Leorio watches Kurapika’s eyes widen as he takes in the mess.
“You weren’t kidding. What on earth is he doing with all of this?” Kurapika gingerly prods at a pile of doll heads. “You said this is an art project?”
“Well, his main work is, you know, normal art. He does these amazing replications. But this is his passion project,” Leorio calls from the bathroom as he fetches the first aid kid. “Here, I’ll show you the other stuff he’s doing. It’s much less weird.”
Kurapika follows Leorio into Zepile’s studio, where Leorio pulls the sheet off of Zepile’s nearly-finished Mona Lisa replication. Kurapika whistles in appreciation.
“Ah, he’s very good.”
“Yeah,” Leorio agrees, “he does these big commissions of knockoffs to pay the bills, but he gets tired of it, I think, and has the urge to rip the heads off of a million dolls and throw paint around and everything.”
Kurapika nods thoughtfully. “I see. It’s understandable. It seems constricting to only work as an imitator.”
“Mm. I guess. Here, let’s go in my room and I’ll fix that up,” Leorio says, pointing at Kurapika’s arm. The wound is bleeding through the paper towel and staining the sleeve of Kurapika’s white tunic.
“All right.”
Kurapika follows Leorio into his bedroom and perches on the edge of his bed, holding his injured arm to his chest. Leorio feels a wave of embarrassment over the state of the room as Kurapika gazes around curiously. He wishes that he had cleaned it sometime in the past month.
The rest of the apartment is subject to Zepile’s artistic whims, but his own room shouldn’t look this bad. His bed is unmade, and the navy blue comforter is probably overdue for a wash. His dusty medical textbooks are scattered across his desk and bookshelves, and there are more than a few dirty mugs of coffee sitting around. On top of that, he’s never had a great eye for decorating. The postcards he taped up from Pietro’s trip to Vietnam last year look tacky. Pietro’s hospital bills are piled on the desk, and there are unpaid debt notices taped to the mirror and bedpost. It smells kind of musty, too, thanks to a large pile of dirty towels and clothes in the corner. He can’t remember the last time he did laundry.
“Sorry it’s such a pit,” Leorio mutters, gesturing around. “I don’t usually have company.”
“Oh. Don’t worry. I don’t mind,” Kurapika says politely, leaning over to inspect one of the postcards. “Is that Hanoi?”
“Oh. Uh. I think so. My buddy went there last year.”
“A lovely city.”
“Yeah, it looks cool.” Leorio opens the first aid kid and produces a bottle of antiseptic and a roll of bandages. “Here, lemme take a look at that.”
Kurapika removes the bloodied paper towel and extends his arm, and Leorio takes a seat next to him on the bed. He’s so close that he can hear Kurapika’s quiet breathing.
“Any deeper and you would need stitches,” Leorio says, running his finger alongside the gash. “You’re lucky. Well, as lucky as you could be given the circumstances. Heh.”
At his touch, Kurapika shivers and sits up straighter. It makes Leorio’s mouth go dry.
“But. Um. We can just clean this up and you’ll be good to go. You’ve had a tetanus shot sometime in the last three years, right?”
Kurapika looks at the ceiling, frowning. “A tetanus shot?”
“You definitely had one. You’re, what, 19? 20? It’s legally required for most colleges. You’re probably fine.”
“Oh. Then I guess I did.”
Kurapika falls silent, wincing a little when Leorio applies the antiseptic over the wound.
“Sorry,” Leorio murmurs, “I know it stings.”
Traffic hums steadily outside. A light rain begins to fall, waking up the sparrows in the trees and making them chirp and rustle around in the leaves. A low-flying jet thrums overhead.
As he works, Leorio’s phone rings three times, but he ignores it. He takes his time wrapping the bandage around his thin forearm, making sure it’s secure but not too tight. When he’s finished, he pats Kurapika on the hand.
“There. Good as new.”
Kurapika turns his arm over to inspect the bandage. “Thank you. This looks very professional.” He gives Leorio a hesitant smile. “I appreciate it.”
“Don’t mention it,” Leorio says, scratching the back of his neck. “Super easy. Um...”
He glances at his phone; the missed calls are all from Pietro’s hospital. Shit .
“Do you have anything to do right now?” Kurapika asks, rising from the bed and tucking his hair behind his ears. “Can I take you to breakfast?”
“Agh. I would really like that, but I have to head over to the hospital.”
“Oh. Do you have to work?”
“No, no,” Leorio says, shaking his head, “I, um. I just have to visit my friend. He’s sick.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay!” Leorio says quickly. “But, hey. I would really love to another time. Do you wanna exchange numbers?”
Kurapika throws him an alarmed look. “For our phones?”
“Uh—yes?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Kurapika says softly, almost to himself. “Although,” he pauses, tugging at a lock of hair, “well. I guess—I guess it would be all right.”
“Um. I’m not trying to—I just, I mean.” Leorio flails desperately, wondering if he came on too strong. “It would be cool to—hang. Sometime. Um.”
“What’s your cell number?” Kurapika asks, taking out his phone. “I’ll, er, save yours and send you mine.”
Well, geez.
Leorio certainly knows that tactic. Still, though, he tells Kurapika his number. Just in case.
“Thank you, Leorio,” Kurapika says, pocketing his phone and smiling again. “I’m glad we ran into each other this morning.”
“Me too! I mean—I’m sorry about that guy. And your arm. And everything.”
“Oh, it happens,” Kurapika says offhandedly. “What can you do?”
Leorio has several answers to that (don’t pick fights with crazy people, stay away from strangers with knives, get regular tetanus shots), but he mirrors Kurapika’s breezy shrug.
“You heading back to Daily Beans?” Leorio asks as they leave the apartment. “I’m walking that way.”
“No, I have some work to do,” Kurapika says, gesturing vaguely in the opposite direction. They pause at an intersection, and he looks up at Leorio and offers a handshake. “I’ll be going this way now. Keep an eye out for pickpockets, will you?”
Leorio accepts the handshake, marveling at how small Kurapika’s hand feels in his own large mitt. When the handshake is broken, Kurapika leans into the street and hails a passing cab.
“Right. And same for you. Don’t pick fights when there isn’t a doctor around to patch you up, all right?” He gives Kurapika a playful wink, but Kurapika nods seriously before stepping into the cab.
“Yes. I won’t. Thank you, Leorio. Take care.”
He shuts the door. Leorio follows the cab with his eyes until it’s lost in the sea of cars on First Avenue, feeling a little shell-shocked.
It’s a quiet day in the ICU today with no car crashes or gunfights to liven things up, and Pietro is bored and starved for gossip. He’s an appreciative audience for Leorio’s story, gasping and swearing in all of the right places.
“Whoa. You think it was karate or something?” he asks, struggling to adjust his oxygen mask. “That’s insane. How big is he, anyways?”
“That’s the thing!” Leorio says, waving his hands for emphasis. “He’s really small. Like, he comes up to my chest. Tiny. But he beat the shit out of this guy, I’m telling you. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even on the subway. It was scary.”
Pietro nods. “Yeah. Damn. So you took him back and played Doctor with him? You little perv,” he teases, aiming a feeble kick at Leorio’s midsection from the bed.
“Oh, shut up. I just put a bandage on it and cleaned it up. It woulda gotten infected.”
“Why didn’t you just take him to the ER? It’s right here.”
Leorio shrugs, scratching his head.
“Um. I got the feeling that he really didn’t want to be involved with the hospital. Some people are just like that.”
“Oh. Maybe his insurance ran out,” Pietro says darkly. “Man, it’ll be shitty when that happens for me.” He shudders. “I don’t even wanna know how bad it is by now. God, can you imagine?”
“Yeah,” Leorio agrees, not meeting his eyes, “that would...be bad. Hey, aren’t the Mets on?” He searches for the remote control in Pietro’s mess of blankets and turns on the staticky overhead television. The room fills with the sound of a cheering crowd. “Let’s watch the game, yeah?”