Stop microwaving fish! (during Parkes work hours)

I returned with three initial memories.

One: a blazing peak of an orgasm so cataclysmic, so obliterating and ferocious, that it had made everything around me flicker and blacken at the edges, threatening to hurl me out into the unknown. Two: the stubborn unwillingness to actually get hurled anywhere, despite me being exhausted to inhuman levels, on the thinnest edge of drifting off. I remembered not allowing myself to do the latter, not until he was back. Only when he’d slipped in behind me, pulled the sheet over us both, and draped himself around my body, I had given myself up, sinking and dissolving almost instantly. The third and last memory: the pale-blue dawn hue beginning to color the darkness of the bedroom right before I had fallen asleep. Or more like, had blacked out.

I couldn’t tell what time it was now. Noon, maybe? Daylight flooded in through the open window, crisp and bright. Rolling over and blinking through the sleep-induced fog, I found the bed beside me empty, and for one mad, irrational moment, I feared Wakuu was gone. Despite how I could hear the faint sizzle coming from the kitchen. And could smell something cooking.

Also, I could smell Wakuu on my pillow. I buried my face in it and grunted.

Then all of the other memories returned. Right as I was gathering my strength to fall out of bed; like yesterday. Unlike yesterday, none of those memories were bristly.

Like yesterday, I felt sore. Unlike yesterday, I felt sore only ever-so-slightly and in a good, lazy, sluggish way, akin to the aftermath of a proper workout. Unlike yesterday, I staggered to the bathroom with a smile on my face instead of an agonized grimace.

My neck was a mess. My left breast had acquired a circular patch of bruised skin, too, like I’d been bitten by a mutant mosquito. There were faint pink lines, as if drawn with a soft-leaded pencil, running down my sides. Probably-maybe actual bite marks under my collarbone.

Just as I’d anticipated, the sight felt satisfying, and my smile widened as I admired that mess in the mirror. Admired — not because I was a glutton for punishment, not because I was into manifestations of possessiveness, not because I was looking forward to rebelliously flaunting hickeys.

Any one of those reasons would have been depressing.

The actual reason, I discovered, was heartwarming: because I had been gifted an echo of that good-natured, multi-faceted, dumb joke, one which carried just a slight hint of self-deprecation: Wakuu and I were so ridiculously hungry, so touch-starved and greedy that we’d nearly resorted to cannibalism. So now I felt like I had ‘om-nom-glargl!’ written on my skin in bold. What’s not to laugh about.

I checked my phone, finding one new message from Wakuu, sent a little over an hour ago: ‘Good morning 💫 I’ll be back soon.’

Of course he apologized for the bruises, once I’d stumbled into the kitchenette wearing sweatpants and an insanely oversized tee shirt. Despite the rigor and stern responsibility permeating his tone of voice, Wakuu looked and sounded adorably boyish.

Of course he attached an additional half-apology, about how he ‘shouldn’t have done that thing at the end’, and ‘it was irresponsible’, because ‘the condom could have ruptured’, and— Of course he trailed off midword when my attempt to hold back a snort failed.

“I’m doing it again, am I?” Wakuu smiled with apprehension as he studied my dopey and conspiratorial smirk. “Worrying about everything, overthinking everything, even when everything is fine. It’s such a harmful habit.”

“Not your fault,” I reminded, paddling over to him. “It’s a factory setting. It’s hardwired into you. Us.”

“Can it be rewired?” He opened a cabinet and rummaged for more suitable crockery.

“Of course it can. Anything can be rewired. And it’s easier to do it together.”

“So it’s like a support group.” Wakuu pulled out a small bowl and added it to the mismatched (to prop-comedy levels) tableware spread out on top of the counter.

He sounded and behaved calm and unflappable. My instincts and his healthy complexion told me that this calmness was neither a mask nor the result of fatigue. Some things had visibly changed about him since the night before last. Wakuu spoke a little slower, for starters. His movements seemed slower, too, more relaxed, flowing, yet no less precise and measured. His back was not stiff or strained, his posture lacked any tension. His hands were handling the utensils with confident, practiced ease. His usually-restless, perpetually-rushing vibe was toned down by a few degrees.

I liked seeing him this way. No, I loved seeing him this way.

“Yes. We’re a support group. Or like a club. For Needlessly Worrying Overthinkers.”

He nudged my shoulder with his. Peeking around his forearm, I thought I noticed something brand new in his gaze. A sort of a tranquil joy. I glimpsed it for a moment, right before he returned his attention to the oven, spatula in hand, with his hair falling to the sides of his forehead and obscuring his eyes.

Wakuu flipped both chunks of fish with the speed and precision of a brain surgeon, and the realization fully washed over me, and I experienced that anatomical oddity where my heart violently disagreed with its position in my chest.

‘I’d love to cook for you sometime. When there’s time.’

I ached to touch him. “So which category of cooks do you belong to? Those who absolutely hate interruptions and invasions into their space, or—” Removing the lid off the paunchy rice-pot and raising a fluffy cloud of steam, Wakuu huffed a smile. “With you? And right now? Or.”

Oh thank goodness.

Cupping his shoulders from behind, I stood on tiptoes and nuzzled into his temple and cheek. The latter, much like on Thursday night on the square, but without any doubts and reservations this time.

Wakuu tipped his head, pressed his cheek into the tip of my nose, and said, “Hi.”

I kissed the corner of his mouth and said, “Hi.”

And then I just remained standing like that for a few seconds. Pressing myself to his back. With my chin planted on his shoulder. Watching him spoon the rice into one rice bowl and one mid-sized plastic container, because I only had one rice bowl. Thinking of how I was looking forward to getting more rice bowls. Or maybe just one additional rice bowl.

“Was I snoring?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I blacked out. So I’m going to need more input data, gathered over time. Like, a lot more.”

“I can grant that. We can continue the experiment tonight.”

“Fantastic, we’re so time-efficient.” Bumping my nose into the nape of his neck one last time, I drew away. “What about me, was I snoring? Blanket-hogging? Drooling all over your chest? Ice toes?”

He tossed his head sideways, to flip the hair out of his eyes. Over his shoulder, Wakuu threw a glance at me and smiled.

“No. You sleep like a caterpillar.”

I felt an overwhelming urge to smooch his face all over. The urge went on the list of things to do sometime after breakfast.

“A caterpillar,” I repeated, endeared and puzzled.

He flipped off the second burner and transferred the fish filet off the skillet; one piece to a dessert saucer, one to an overturned lid of the aforementioned plastic container.

“Yes. Instead of hogging the blanket, you’re trying to escape from under it. And you’re taking so little space that it’s bordering on uncanny. Do you own any chopsticks?”

“Second drawer from the top. Then why are you up?” Fully dressed, somewhat groomed, and having had tea already — judging by the halved contents of the mug on the tabletop next.

“I don’t know.” Wakuu opened the drawer, moved aside a few wooden sporks, candles, and batteries, and scooped up a couple of chopstick sets. They were single-use, still in the paper pockets, given out by Emma several weeks ago, during her brief experimental Taco-fusion phase. “Not for any bad reasons. Not even because of a new bed. But simply— Woke up, saw you, and couldn’t fall back asleep.”

“I think I know why. I’d like to hope I do.”

“Why?”

“It’s this condition, it’s called joy. Super rare.”

“Indeed?” Wakuu’s grin finally bloomed. Not even like a flower. Like a whole meadow. “Never heard of it.”

“ Super rare,” I repeated with emphasis, and my voice nearly broke as I looked at him. My face and neck were starting to burn; the aforementioned condition came with so many unpredictable side effects.

“I think your hypothesis is viable, yes. Either way, then I decided to be productive. I’m sure you can relate.”

“Oh how well.”

I chugged down the rest of his tea, put the mug down, and poured some more from a cast-iron teapot I’d never seen before.

“Where is this from?”

“Dad. Seeing how he’s so near, I went to check up on him. Aiming to maybe get some fresh fish, but he saddled me with a little extra.”

“Ah. The parental version of ‘a little’, got it.”

Still grinning, Wakuu gestured for me to sit down, which I did right away. “Uh-huh. The dashi, the paste, the beans. The omelet is cold and made by him. And I had to improvise a bit, but overall—”

“Overall, this is the nicest breakfast I’ve laid my eyes on in months.”

After transferring all of the mismatched bowls, plates, and containers onto the table, he pulled out the other chair and sat down, too, this time opposite me.

I unsheathed both pairs of chopsticks and passed one to him.

“But you really need more dishware and cutlery. No offense,” Wakuu murmured, accepting and then scrutinizing them as he broke them apart. There might have been some splinters sticking out.

“None taken. And, tell me something I don’t know.”

“There is an exoplanet out there that’s one giant diamond. Its mass is eight times the mass of ours, and it’s colloquially known as Lucy.”

“Wow.” So-o-o getting da-bombed as soon as they’d get to her. “I bet someone already measured how much Lucy costs in derek-land money.”

“Certainly. That number has thirty zeroes.” With a sardonic half-smile on his face, Wakuu moved the saucer that held pickled radish slices, closer to me. “Tell me something I don’t know?”

“The observed rates of sociopathy and narcissism increased by six percent worldwide in the last two decades, but the research is so limited that the numbers actually might be much higher than that ... Hold on, you haven’t eaten yet? You waited for me?”

“I wanted to wait for you. I hate to eat alone.”

“Me too. And thank you. Really, thanks. Considering how shitty my kitchen is—”

He nodded. “Then, my kitchen next time, for the full experience.”

We smiled at each other and reached out in unison, clasping our hands together, palm to palm, fingers interlacing.

“Itadakimasu?” I attempted.

“Bari akhorzhag?” he attempted; minus the guttural consonant, quite successfully.

Wakuu squeezed my hand lightly; I gave him a squeeze back, then we both let go and dug in.

This rice was cooked to perfection. The fish, to absolute goddamn perfection; flaky, buttery and tender. Eyes rolling in bliss, I let out a moan as I was chewing.

“Why thank you.” With this, Wakuu grinned again, his eyes twinkling with mischief. I was getting addicted to that look on his face, judging by how my heart was doing junkie somersaults each time I’d see him smiling.

Hastily swallowing, I pointed a finger at him, feeling my eyebrows jumping up. “You’re flirting, we’re flirting!”

He raised his palms up in mock surrender; the grin remained plastered on his face.

“Seriously, though, no joke, this is so good. If you ever get fed up with academia and decide to jump ship to industry—”

“A food truck, for sure.” His eyes were so warm as he looked at me from across the table, I felt like I was basking in sunlight. “We can do it together. No, we should. You’ve got better people skills.”

“I sure do. We’ll become successful and rich, and you’ll finally get regular sleep hours.”

“Indeed.” Chuckling, Wakuu nodded his head while opening the jar that held homemade nattō beans. “Because, unlike being in academia, running a restaurant is easy and stress-free.”

“See, you’re being sarcastic, but you know better than I do that there’s a grain of truth to this. In comparison.”

“I sure do,” he echoed with a soft smile.

I noisily slurped some soup out of a large coffee mug, and he also slurped some soup. Out of a corner of a plastic container.

I’d been missing this breakfast. One of the first new habits I had acquired upon entering this hemisphere and this adulthood. I perceived this breakfast not as a notion, not as a meal, but as a living breathing local, an integration consultant who had greeted me upon arrival all those years ago, in a land made of uncertainty. Greeted and then stayed: a welcoming face that had seemed new and a little unusual at first, yet so practical, so thorough, and making so much sense. Every single morning before classes, in the university canteen, there for me, reliable and rooted.

Since coming to the island, I’d never bothered to cook the proper full version, mainly because I never had enough time, or enough appliances and practice. Best I was capable of: a bowl of rice, some pickles, throw in an egg, and done.

I told him so, without any comedic interludes. Wakuu’s expression shifted closer to serious.

“Before moving, or as a child. What did you usually have for breakfast?” he asked, pouring some more tea into another coffee mug and passing it to me.

I took it from his hand, put it down on the table, and nudged the largest slice of the omelet-roll towards him.

“Leavened flatbread.” Warm and smelling of molten earth. I remembered ignoring the bread scissors, tearing the flat sheets with my hands whenever Mom was not around. How she would rage whenever she’d catch me in the ‘unseemly’ act or find evidence of it, and berate me for my bad manners. I remembered Dad whispering to me, conspiratorially, that I was right and that the scissors ‘spoiled the taste’; I still believed it to be true. I would believe it till my dying day. “A lot of herbs, and I mean fresh ones, mostly tarragon and purple basil.” I remembered Dad having a Herb Guy at the nearby market. I could no longer remember the Herb Guy’s name. I wished I could remember. “Hard-boiled eggs.” I remembered a neighbor keeping chickens. With a designated coop on her balcony, but they had free roam and reign of her apartment, too, sauntering under sky-high ceilings. I could no longer remember that neighbor’s face or name either. “These three were meant to be combined. Like a bitey burrito.” That market was no longer there. That apartment building was no longer there. They were there, then they were rubble, and then they were no more. Those people were no longer there. None of us would be there ever again.

“Why bitey?”

“Tarragon is really bitey. Akin to horseradish. Also, white cheese that smelled like dirty socks. Or, well, like—” I hooked some more nattō beans, pulled them out of the Wataru-supplied mason jar, and mixed them into what remained of my rice. “Sometimes, an egg-and-tomato scramble. Black tea, as strong and bitter as a gut punch.” I took a restrained sip of tea. It was as refreshing and fragrant as a subtropical spring.

“Is that an unpleasant memory?” Wakuu asked all of a sudden, studying my face intently, chopsticks frozen halfway to the bowl that held our shared portion of seaweed salad.

“Why? Do I look like a depressed clown right now?” Without waiting for an answer, I added, “Not exactly unpleasant. Bittersweet.”

I’d left early. I was luckier than most. But, by that logic, Dad was the luckiest. That logic sucked.

“Because you miss that food?”

“Not quite.”

Communicate, damnit.

Inhaling a deep breath, I looked into his eyes. How would one explain that feeling? How could one relay the immigrant experience to someone who stayed rooted, who had a home to come back to? Yet I would try. With him, I would try or explode trying. Only, not now. “I do want to tell you, but it’s bordering on a downer. Pretty sure we’ve established that you and I are better at dealing with those at night. So may I leave this one for supper?”

“Dinner,” Wakuu counter-proposed. “Or how about, for a long walk on the beach.”

“Deal. Wait, a walk on the beach, are we doing one of those? Today?”

Visibly excited for the weekend ahead, he gestured to the window. “Of course we are. The weather obliges.”

I had no objections to this proposal. Although we’d probably end up in that dim and cozy grotto tucked on the furthest side of the town-side beach, and make out like horny teenagers. If so, no objections to that, either.

Wakuu told me of his childhood breakfasts, of how cooking functioned (and didn’t) out at sea, and how his diet had been much more protein-heavy in his childhood days, given that he’d grown up on a fishing boat. How his father had repeatedly expressed an ironclad conviction that eating a lot of fish would guarantee Wakuu growing up big and strong.

“So true. Clearly it helped, look how buff you are,” I said, and Wakuu flexed his skinny arm, humming in agreement. We drowned our chuckles in the last sips of soup. A dot of seaweed remained over his upper lip. I reached over the table to wipe it off with the pad of my thumb, and he thanked me.

I liked this. All of this. I’d never had this before, and neither had he. Staying for breakfast, eating breakfast with someone you really liked, and talking. About breakfast. The half-assed banter that was gradually turning into something more and more earnest. Not feeling awkward, but maybe just a little timid — because we were new to this — and a whole lot of relaxed and sluggish. Slowly getting the brain engine started, not rushing anywhere. Asking questions because of genuine curiosity, not out of politeness.

This was something I wanted to keep in my life. I could see that he did, too.

“I wonder, is there a food item that you do miss?” he inquired at some point.

I didn’t have to think about it long and hard. “Yes. Sometimes. Well, not food, not exactly. A spice. Sumac. When I was little, I had it on everything. And I mean, everything. Every single thing was sumac-flavored, and there was a salt shaker with salt and a salt shaker with sumac. It goes great with falafel, by the way.”

Wakuu leaned forward. “What does it taste like?”

“I guess, like—” Musing, I crunched on a thin slice of radish. “Citrusy. Tart, tangy, slightly sweet. I don’t— I’ve never actually thought about it. Mostly sumac tastes like home. Unhelpful, I know. But, I mean, what does soy sauce taste like, amirite?

“Like salt,” Wakuu deadpanned, and I tilted my head and pursed my lips, peering at him in pretense disapproval. He cracked, his shoulders quivering with a restrained chuckle. “Could you procure it here?”

Hello, fellow chronic problem-solver.

“I suppose I could. But calamansi works too.”

“Is there something edible that you don’t miss at all and are glad to no longer be eating?”

My mind jumped into (angry) high gear. “Yes! Okra. I hate okr—” Interrupting me, Wakuu made a theatrical gagging sound, and my heart sang.

I couldn’t help but grin. “What, you hate it too?”

With his nose wrinkled up, he continued grimacing as if nauseated. “So much.”

“Right?! It’s disgusting.”

“Absolutely inexcusable.”

“Should be banned.”

“Eradicated.”

“Eradicated.”

“It’s okay deep-fried, though,” he noted after a short pause, leaning back in his chair and looking away, his expression flattening and growing contemplative.

“Everything is okay deep-fried, that’s cheating, that doesn’t count. Come on, don’t let the vile beast brainwash you, I need us to be a team!”

The corners of his lips curled up in a soft, gentle smile. “We are. Fuck okra.”

“Fuck okra.”

I extended my hand towards Wakuu, and we hooked pinkies for one brief second, in a gesture of solidarity.

Breakfast was done. Together, we gathered up the dishes and washed them: him washing, me drying and putting away, until everything was back in its rightful place, except for that cast-iron kettle he’d brought over from his father.

"Is this a borrowed luxury that we should return, or a new addition to the household?"

Wakuu’s eyes widened a fraction. "The latter, of course. Dad gave it to me, I'm giving it to you. Because I’m going to be drinking tea here in the mornings, right?"

My smile was so wide, it made my cheeks hurt. “Right.”

So far, my weekends on the island had been drab. Get some social interactions, get as much sleep as possible, loiter around, do some chores, force myself to stop doing chores and to do nothing, get more sleep if possible. I was looking forward to changing the routine, even if the change came with sacrificing some sleep hours.

His weekends had been chores-and-filial-duty weekends, twice as drab, so I figured it would be fair of me to let Wakuu decide on the agenda for this one and, hopefully, some future ones, too.

“Aside from that walk on the beach, how do you want to spend today? Your call, boss,” I said, depositing the last mug into the cupboard above the sink.

“I don’t know,” Wakuu replied. In an excited tone of voice. “I suppose, I need to climb back to the observatory and get the overnight bag, then bring it here.”

“We,” I corrected.

“We,” he agreed. “Then we could go for a swim. But otherwise—” Wakuu gave a sheepish shrug.

“Wing it?”

“Wing it.”

This smiley-grinny thing on our faces, it just kept on happening at random times and with no conscious effort on our part. Probably another side effect of that super rare condition which showed no signs of abating.

“By the way.” Wakuu narrowed his eyes, a playful note creeping back into his gaze. “Do you know that beautiful grotto on the beach—”

Cutting him off, I let out a whining sound. “Get out of my head. Yes I do know that grotto, and I was just thinking about it five minutes ago. Get out of my head.”

“Oh? What were you thinking about?” His grin turned sly, and his eyebrows perked up, and overall that cheeky expression was so adorable and ridiculous that I lost my breath for a moment.

What was I to say, that I was fantasizing about us rolling around in the sand like puppies? That I was daydreaming about ending up with my back against the smooth stone, with my legs around his waist, with him buried deep inside of me as his lips either swallowed my moans or inflicted some more damage to my neck? That I was also imagining simply sitting there with him, side by side on some nice flat rock, maybe talking, maybe not, and watching the waves roll in, and marveling at how the thin and scarce rays of the sun played on the quartz-like stones above?

Meanwhile, Wakuu was tugging on his lower lip with his teeth, watching my face closely, his eyes glinting with a whole lot of amusement and anticipation, plus just a drop of bashfulness.

“That I’m dying to go there with you.” I gave a sheepish shrug of my own, opting out of adding ‘and do some more Totally Unacceptable And Mega Nice Semi-public Things together’, not even because the Things were clearly implied, but because I was fine with whatever. As long as the ‘we’ part was included. As long as we could relax for a little while.

“Me too,” Wakuu said quietly.

“But, uhm, I wanted to tell you.” Stumbling on my words a little, firmly trying to not feel or sound embarrassed, I explained to him that I could not use birth control pills or anything hormonal, because of a wretched condition that was not so much genetic as it was ethnic, and how this condition was caused by hundreds, if not thousands, years of endogamy, and plaguing all of my female relatives, and that I would need to take other measures available to me, like maybe installing an IUD, because I had no idea where to procure condoms on the island, although of course I could — and would — ask around, but until then, since we’d used up our meager stash, could we maybe abstain from— Wakuu chuckled. Trailing off, I raised my gaze. His smile widened as he silently pointed towards the windowsill.

“What?” My eyes followed the cue, stumbling upon what I’d failed to notice before: a large, brand new, and glossy box of condoms.

Once again, I felt like singing. “Where did you get these?!”

“From Ratih, of course.”

When we were done laughing our asses off, Wakuu suggested a shower. I suggested a shower together. He specified that that was what he’d meant in the first place. Then we spent about half a minute kissing, to keep our mouths occupied and stop each other from voicing our worries and fears about potentially breaking either our bones in the shower or the shower itself. Then we didn’t break anything in the shower.