Yo galaxy so old, —

The climb was surprisingly smooth, with the path winding through dense, tangled thickets, but never taking unexpected turns, never too precipitous; a reliable road reliably leading to the only possible destination: up top.

It seemed well-maintained. But patchwork. Some segments were dry soil and gravel, some cobbled — likely echoes of what had been there before modern observatories (and oil rigs) existed, and some, when the slope would steepen, were stairs, scrappy, built out of whatever had been available or maybe remained from the construction above, including bricks, concrete panels, wooden boards, metal rods. Each step followed the contours of the terrain; they were uneven in length and width. A good device for a mix-and-match workout, I thought, understanding what Chaem meant, in full.

It was breezier and cooler upstairs, but the higher I climbed, the fewer sounds of life remained. Sure, the ground still crunched underneath my sneakers, and sure, some foliage still rustled in the wind, but— At some point, uneasiness overtook me; no bird calls, no monkeys shrieking their indignation, no insects buzzing. Nothing was piercing the quiet, and it felt eerie. I found myself taking deep breaths for one additional reason, not only to keep my pace steady. And regretting that I’d forgotten my earphones.

The gloomy feeling passed once I saw a toucan and the toucan saw me. I returned his stranger-danger side eye glare, adjusted my backpack straps, and went on walking.

The final bit consisted of a smooth flight of stone stairs, leading up to the edge of the terrace at the summit, and I emerged on it with one last decisive stomp, and jackknifed for a time, hyperventilating, hands over my knees.

I was sweating like a pig would sweat if pigs could sweat, which they could not.

But I’d finally made the climb. I’d reached the top. Flagless.

After a while, having caught my breath, I chugged down some water from my travel bottle, re-tied my ponytail higher, and looked ahead.

From below, the observatory had seemed small and cute, like a cap of an enoki mushroom. From here the cylinder looked imposing, I had not expected it to be as wide and tall. My eyes got anchored to the base, and now I saw how it could have enough space to house a few people. Perhaps even a whole research team. Metal, glass, concrete, all painted white. The double doors were whiter. The dome was the whitest; the base was as round as the dome, it must have been a nightmare to furnish. Craning my neck, looking this way and that, I concluded that the dome was mounted on some kind of a rotating base, but I couldn’t see the telescope itself through the slit in the roof. Not from where I was standing.

The terrace was large, perfectly flat, paved… and neat, an exemplary observation deck. With a couple of benches by the ornate stone balustrade. A regular telescope next to the latter; perhaps bigger and more expensive than one a noisy, spying-from-balconies grandma would have owned. All jokes aside; how bizarre. Was the regular telescope meant for visitors?

I approached the balustrade, leaned on the stone railing, and studied the view below. Of the town tucked underneath the slope, not much could be seen, but the panorama of the beaches and the sea took my breath away all over again.

For a moment, I felt something akin to an exhilarating rush, as if I was truly standing at the top of the world, but this elation was even more fleeting than my gloominess during the ascent. I turned away, thinking how I preferred to keep my nose closer to the ground after all.

Yet the view was beautiful, the air was sweet. The benches, cozy. Behind the furthest edge of the terrace I noticed a few magenta asters that weren’t growing anywhere below, and remembered Oliver. He was the son of Beach Shack’s owner, Sunny, and his wife Eleanor — both in their fifties, from what I could surmise. A late lamb, a miracle child. Where I was from, they called those ‘autumn poppies’. Somehow true to that name, Ollie was crazy about flowers. One could have said his love for them was endearing, but endearing didn’t seem expressive enough; I’d seen people react to gifted convertibles with less enthusiasm than he’d react to a gift of a single flower. His parents encouraged the obsession and were quite proud of it. Ollie had never been here, he’d never seen these asters.

Altogether the climb had taken me about fifteen minutes, but I’d rushed. A lot. It would have taken someone else half an hour, easy. Maybe even an hour if they were in worse shape and had to ascend at a snail’s pace. But a person with a condition, not to mention all of the seniors below, wouldn’t even dare, no matter how neat a place this was.

Yes, the town needed some goddamn cable cars. Yes, I was all for raking the wallet of a crackpot dumbass billionaire if swindling him meant that a boy could come here with his aging parents and make funny sounds at a pretty flower. Hell. Yes. Sure, the slim possibility of finding out that aliens existed was great, but not as great as this one. Were my priorities skewed? Maybe, but I was at peace with them.

Then I looked at the dish higher up the slope, almost at the top. Silvery, shiny, and as huge as my bewilderment.

“Hey there.”

I flinched and turned. No, I had not failed to notice the whole there-one-heartbeat and gone-the-next exhilaration that my brain had experienced between hearing the voice and realizing it was not his voice. No, I wasn’t judging myself for any of it. And I’d been wanting to talk to her either way. Despite not having brought a literal flag to plant, I was prepared.

With her hair tied in a practical high bun, Chaem was wearing her training gear and doing cross body shoulder stretches on the go.

“Hey. Headed down?”

She popped her neck, shook her palms, and proceeded to a rear shoulder stretch, muscles playing under her skin. I heard her wrists cracking behind her back, paired with a short groan. “In a bit, yeah. Everything cool?”

Chaem must have been unused to visitors looking away from the balustrade, and not over it.

I pointed at the dish. “Yeah, I’m— I’m confused. So we have both a radio telescope and an optical telescope? How is this, uh. Aren’t they. Isn’t there interference or—” Looking back at Chaem, I was met with sudden lack of motion and a blank stare. “Eh, who cares,” I concluded, shrugging, and shook off my backpack.

“Damn right.”

Had I been trying to read up about astrophysics? Sure. Had any part of it truly stuck? Not really. Maybe some potential joke material, but that was a chronic collateral. Old habits die hard.

Most of astrophysics forever remained abso-friggin-lutely incomprehensible to me.

Did I realize why I had been trying to read up about astrophysics? Of course. Sooner or later, I always figured out the real reasons for anything, especially if they were my own reasons.

“Have you had your second breakfast yet?”

“Was gonna grab it in town. Why?”

“I’ve brought some goodies from downstairs. Here’s your share.”

Her nostrils flaring, Chaem scowled at me and at what I now held in my outstretched hand: a takeout box obtained at the local taco truck, with a flimsy wooden spork attached to the sealed top.

“No starches,” I specified. “Literally a box with fillings. Shredded adobo, but no sugar, Emma said. Grilled veggies, mango salsa. The good bits.”

Chaem was in professional sports and sticking to an athlete diet; I remembered. Four or five small meals per day, no processed stuff, almost no monosaccharides, absolutely no added sugar, limited starches, whole-grain only, an insane protein intake, and so on. I really liked most of the townspeople so far, and of course I wanted them to like me back. After all, I was only human, and humans were social animals.

Dad had taught me that every instance of being considerate went a long way, always. Pay attention to things that matter to them, he’d always said, no matter how tiny and seemingly insignificant; those are road signs pointing to whatever is at the core, he’d said, to whatever reigns over them.

Notice. That was good advice, a good lesson. More poignant and concise than my education could have ever offered.

She stopped scowling and accepted the box from my hands. “Cheers. What’s the occasion?”

“A gesture of goodwill, but also like an appeasement type of offering,” I confessed. “I planned on barging into your home and plying you with food, and maybe asking you some questions.”

“About my roommate, in case he wouldn’t be around,” she stated — not asked — through a crooked smirk, then nodded towards the balustrade.

We approached it together. Chaem detached the spork and opened the box. The pleasantly acidic, deep and spicy smell of its contents tickled my nose as I looked at the stretch of blue canvas once again.

“Yes. I think I’m attracted to him. But I’m not yet sure if I should act on my attraction. I hear he’s got his hands full, especially with that thesis. So I’m doing reconnaissance and a bit of old-fashioned courtship by proxy.”

“Blunt, no BS.” Lips pinned, she nodded her approval. “I like your style.”

Chaem’s own manner was straightforward; perhaps the only other truly straight thing about her, aside from her set priorities.

“I like your training shorts.” They looked comfy.

While sinking the spork into the mass of fragrant fillings, Chaem gave a short bark of a laugh. “I like your flannel.”

“Thank you. Ohhh!” Eyes open wide, I pointed a finger at her, smiling in apprehension. “Women bonding over clothes and men, check!”

She chortled again, ate a big sporkful, hummed in satisfaction, then said, “We’re kinda just literal roommates though. Barely talk, barely intersect. But he's always seemed like a nice kid.”

Chaem was probably younger than him, by a couple of years at least. Yet she gave an impression of someone who called every human with less muscle mass ‘kid’. I had no qualms about that. Whichever defense mechanism worked; I’d be the last one to judge.

“He’s around, by the way. But not for long.”

“What do you mean?”

“Leaving soon. Spends every weekend in the lighthouse with his old man. So if you really wanna make a good impression, it’s him you gotta brown-nose, I think.”

His old man had brought me here on a chicken boat. He was its captain and only crewman. Unless grunts counted, he told me exactly two things on the way. “There” — when I asked where to put my stuff, and “Aim overboard” — when I started heaving. Afterwards, I spent two solid weeks residually intimidated and calling him ‘the Psychopomp’ before learning his actual name.

“Wataru, right? The dad?”

I wasn’t intimidated anymore, as there was no tangible reason to be. The Chicken Boat Captain wasn’t sullen because he was malicious. He was sullen because, unlike my mother, he was neither moving on nor coping.

“Yeah. That’s about it, though. And I don’t know where the mom is. Sorry, kid,” Chaem said, shaking her head, half-shrugging, implying that it’d have been futile to ask.

But why ask what this kid already knew. The mom was where my father was. In the stars.

Right?

~*~

“Wow, these doors,” I blurted out when both arched doors of the observatory opened soundlessly right before me. “More like a whole gate.”

“Very Modern Chic, yes, and I oil it myself.” Wakuu unleashed that candid smile at me, arms still spread, fingers still on the bulky handles, and I felt my heavy heart and mind airing up a little. “What’s up?”

“Dog.” I raised the big box that held the truck’s regular fare. “Well, tacos. Literal ones.”

“Oh.” His shoulders sagged, and his face fell a little, and so did mine.

“Bad time?”

“No, not really, I— Please come in.” Wakuu stepped away to let me pass inside. One of the doors slid shut. “I meant, I just wish there was more of it, I’m heading out soon.”

“How soon?”

The other door closed behind me with a slow hiss, and clicked, locking into its counterpart. Intending to take my sneakers off, I planted the box on a small console table by the entrance, to free up my hands. Yet I froze as Wakuu pursed his lips and peered at the modern chic that was the imported oakwood parquet. In the motionless pause that followed, my vicarious-embarrassment radar started flashing bright red and shrieking a whoo-whoo. I knew the look so well, down to the last miniscule aspect behind it; a look so unique that there was no mistaking it for any other, a look with no other application in the world, ever, anywhere, for anything else. That sharp moment when self-awareness, rationality, and reluctance clashed in a sound-fast skirmish with impulsivity. One of the many bloody battles of the Great Facetiousness War.

Rationality prevailed. “In about half an hour or so. Let’s eat these in the kitchen.”

I raised a finger. “Wait wait wait. You wanted to make a joke. Just now. A very specific one that you also think is bad and not worth it.”

“Yes,” he readily admitted on an exhale, but did not ask me how I knew. “A quip. A very bad one.”

My eyebrows and the corners of my lips flew up. “A dirty one!”

“Yes…” Wakuu let out an embittered sigh. “And so banal.”

“No, come on, don’t say that, it’s all about delivery,” I argued. “Was it something about a quickie?”

“Oh dear.” He let the grin bloom again, looking guilty — not bashful. “Yes.”

“Gimme, I want the quip, come on, do it!”

Shaking his head softly, Wakuu chuckled, lowering his gaze again. “It wouldn’t have worked anyway.”

I tapped his arm over the soft-cotton gray fabric of his baggy tee, and took another guess, “Because I botched the setup!”

He appraised my hand sliding off his shoulder, then raised his head, looked me deadpan in the eyes, and proclaimed in an utterly tragic tone, “Alas! You did.”

Damn, what a natural.

“Hold on, I can fix this, I can backtrack and rephrase, uh.” While he rubbed his palms together, bracing, I cleared my throat, gathered myself into a bundle, straightened up, furrowed my brow, and lowered my voice. “Ahh, you are heading out on an errand soon, then. So how much time do we have?”

Overexcited, Wakuu blasted it, making the rookie mistake of forgetting to inhale. “ENOUGH FOR A QUIC—” A fit of laughter choked his pale throat and broke out of his open mouth, slapsticking me right in the face; Wakuu’s scrawny body folded. I was already snorting into my palm cupped over my mouth. “Enff— Ghaaahahaaah!” Without looking, he fumbled for my hand, grasped it and clung to it, fingers wreathing around my wrist, pulling, trying to climb up, failing, sliding down into my palm. “En—oughhh-uuuU-Ugh!” He wheezed; I oinked. My other hand dropped from my face to the back of his neck. Embracing defeat, he spat out the kicker, “—HOT STUFF!”

Shoulders still shaking, Wakuu unbent himself, tears glistening in his eyes, his fingers braiding into mine, my fingers cupping the back of his neck.

We straightened up — and paused just like that, our eyes locked together, our hands locked together, my arm raised over his shoulder, his pulse tickling my wrist; from the outside looking in it might have seemed like quite a romantic pose; shit-eating grins notwithstanding. As if we were about to surge forward and collide in an epic kiss as the music swelled. Then, of course, we would have started to frantically pull clothes off each other, in between heated smooches, and proceeded to have wild monkey sex underneath tons of glass, metal, and concrete.

But we were neither in a movie nor in the correct hemisphere. Not to mention: self-aware and intelligent adults.

Maybe too self-aware.

With our smiles softening, he squeezed and let go, I patted and let go.

A tear was crawling down his gaunt cheek, he wiped it off. It was a tear of mirth, but I caught myself wondering if the chemical composition was ever the same, whether joy or pain.

“Ohhh I needed this,” he breathed. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” I’d needed it just as much.

“Right, so I’m off to my dad’s in about half an hour, but there’s also enough time for me to show you around, and wait till you see the coffee machine, it’s— I mean, if—” Wakuu stumbled, trailed off, and, cocking his head a couple of centimeters to the side, added, quieter, “if you’d like a tour, of course.”

“I’d love a tour. Never been to an observatory.”

“Never?”

“Ever. Dad once took me to a planetarium. Do planetariums have telescopes?”

“No. Planetariums are just cinemas with messed-up screens.” With this, Wakuu huffed a residual chuckle. “Which makes them way more entertaining to most people. Understandably.”

He passed me a pair of slippers; new and unused. Over his loafer liners, he was wearing a pair exactly like that, I noticed, although it looked like they were a bit too small for him; a whole heap was stashed in a pull-out drawer, at least two dozen, all identical, all white and with the same kitschy-bomby logo.

By now I knew that Avsey-His-Folks-Musta-Hated-Him van der How’s-That-Even-Real-Fokker, as in, Da Bomb, owned spas and salons, too, and a buttload of them. Clinics went without saying. I guessed that upon peeking into the bathroom, I’d find that same logo on towels and toiletries.

The slippers were crap; paperthin, flappy, and bound to break apart after a few uses. Wasteful.

“My apologies,” Wakuu said, noticing me shuffling. “Barely anyone comes here.”

“All good, I understand. Is it like a uniform, are you obligated or—”

He chortled.

“No-oo. And I’ve been planning to order better uwabaki for potential guests, but something else comes up every single time, and I either forget or shelve it.”

Noted. “And for yourself, right?”

“Hmm?”

“Better ones for yourself.”

“Yeah,” he said, but, judging by his lost expression, he hadn’t really thought about it. “I suppose.”

He beckoned me out of the hallway, through the inner door, to the sitting room that was huge, windowless, and perfectly square, with doors on each wall. Climate control was on; the air was cold, pristine, and ether-flavored. Every piece of furniture had been imported, likely brought along with the tech upgrades. Most of it would have felt in its right place within a high-end business hotel. Monochromatic, smooth, sleek, and light but somehow oversized at the same time. Yet here and there I noticed some signs of personality — anywhere else they’d be called clutter.

“Did they fly it all in here?” I mused out loud, rubbing the curved back of a large couch; white as snow.

“Some of it, yes.”

The door to Chaem’s room was closed and locked, but all the others stood ajar. I saw the edge of what must have been his bed — just as large and just as imported — with what must have been an overnight bag, freshly packed and still open, at the foot of it.

“So you’re visiting your dad every weekend.”

“On the dot.” After considering it for a second or two, Wakuu told me that it wasn’t fun and that they mostly spent the time being silent together. I also caught the subtle implications that Wataru was neglectful towards his own needs, and weekends were mostly housekeeping weekends. To make sure he ate well and didn’t spend two days straight ‘only tending to his pots’, whatever that meant.

Babysitting was like an hourglass, I thought. Dad had told me: when I get old, you’ll finally be babysitting me, and feeling and acting like a grumpy parent too.

I forced myself to stop thinking about it.

“So a short tour, I’m afraid,” Wakuu concluded, sighing. “But maybe next time..?”

“I’d love that.”

His office was the most personalized of them all.

“I’m mostly here, not upstairs, it’s—”

A few framed pictures on the humongous desk: Wakuu in academic dress, beaming like a dorky supernova; a photo of his dad; Wakuu with that-nose-gave-her-away Professor Stavrou; a photo of— I stopped gawking and focused on him talking.

An almost-soundless chrome robot vacuum glided past our feet, towards the base of the spiral staircase that was our destination, as well; it bumped into the central pillar, made an indignant whir, and changed directions.

Upstairs, Wakuu showed me the coldest one of all, the ‘control room’. Literal bells and whistles to me, frankly. Some of them beeped. Some didn’t. Some were just regular monitors. But I did my best to listen and understand, and he did his best to gloop it down for me, albeit in fast-forward. The dome was motorized, he said. Here was the spectroscopy equipment.

Okay, so the latter meant there was an optical telescope above us, right?

I still didn’t know if there actually was both an optical and a radio one, but found myself not caring about it that much — if at all — wanting to go to the kitchen instead; and I could see that he was rushing, too, not because he ached to be rid of me, but because time was short and he also wanted to spend the remainder of it sitting and eating. Which he confirmed by nodding towards the control room door and declaring in a tone that was only half-jocose, “I can’t stop thinking about how they’re getting cold!”

Smiling, I shrugged. “Relax, they’re already cold.”

The coffee machine in the kitchen looked like it had been owned by a starship captain before ending up here. With the abundance of devices, the kitchen overall was fit for a chef; but I could see that it was barely ever in use. The most prominent and colorful adornment: the cluster of cans that held vitamin supplements, on one of the tabletops. Chaem’s. All of it looked clean, practical, and spacious. And lonely, but not necessarily in a bad way, and I told him as much.

We sat down at the kitchen table to eat tacos.

“What’s a good way?” Wakuu passed me a plate and a glass of water.

“Hm?” I passed him a couple of paper napkins.

“Lonely, but in a good way. What precisely did you mean by that?” He pushed the box forward, so it’d be equal distance from us both.

“I guess someone else would have called it solitude.” I opened the box. “But solitude is a choice. Lonely isn’t always a choice, but you can make peace with it. This feels like a place that has made peace with it.”

“Or a place for making peace with it.” He reached down into the box and poked the edge of a folded compartment. There were five of those, to house six tacos. “Do you have any food allergies?”

“No. You?”

“None … It’s, uh,” he gave a short cough, and I saw the corner of his mouth rise up and descend, “it’s been a while since anyone brought me food.”

Understanding his meaning, I crumpled a napkin and winced a little. Of course he’d figured out that I was hitting on him. “Sorry. Too blunt an approach?”

“No, it— Yes, I suppose it is, but not in a bad way either. Straightforward, not rectilinear. It’s not that I’m against flirting, but— Coyness and simpering is for the lucky few with too much time on their hands. Which is neither me nor you.”

“Yeah. Or for someone bright-eyed.”

“Yep.”

“But I can be risqué if I want to.”

“I can too.”

We’d probably be funny if we attempted to be ‘risqué’. And not even in a slapstick or bodily-humor way, but in an observational-humor way. There’d be some bad puns, too, I was sure of it.

Wakuu pinched and scooped up a taco, transferred it to his plate, then said with not a hint of any type of humor, “I’d love to cook for you sometime. When there’s time.”

Straightforward, yet not rectilinear.

“That’d be great. I’d love that.”

We ate those tacos, down to the last mango salsa dot. They were a bit soggy already — and cold, yes — but still really good.

“Right, time to move out.” I watched the last bit of levity abandoning his features as Wakuu grabbed the overnight bag and gestured towards the hallway.

We descended the slope together, barely talking on the way. But the silence was neither straining nor strained. Nor gloomy; I listened for the gravel crunching underneath his feet, and perceived it as sounds of life. It was that other thing that was gloomy.

The toucan was still sitting on the branch, like a sullen guard at a gate. We both stopped and studied him as he studied us right back.

“This bird’s expression … almost sentient,” mused Wakuu. “I’d say, even a bit judgmental. As if he’s about to start talking and teaching us ancient wisdoms. Or berating us for something.”

“Not this time,” I assured.

~*~ It was that string of lights, the same one.

At first they hung it, which made the square look cozy and festive, and then they kept it on; at times all of it was on, end-to-end, and at times it was beating out rhythmic multi-colored patterns with several ornate bulbs blinking at once; but at some point a flock of horny and uncouth sparrows decided that the string was a nice roost… So now it was broken.

I noticed it as soon as I’d stumbled onto the square in flip-flops, wearing a pink yukata plastered with sunflowers, and feeling cute and silly. Frank — the guy who ran the local taverna along with his brother Noah — had informed me of the existence of the bath house, then gushing about how awesome it was, and how he and his wife Erika regularly soaked there until near-boiling point, and I was dead set on reaching that marvel tonight, no matter what; so the attire was a promise I’d made to myself. But first I wanted to drop by said taverna. The special tonight was kaldereta; the closest to the taste of home that I could get in this part of the world, and I would not miss out.

I noticed the malfunction and stopped, instantly feeling unsettled, for no apparent reason. The string was clearly broken, what else. One light would pulse on and flicker unevenly for a short time, then either go out or slowly twinkle out, which turned the string into nothing but a clothes-rope, black and overburdened; then some other lantern would light up, jitter, and simmer down, and so on. Rinse and repeat. It was a different bulb each time. Someone needed to look into this, and soon.

I noticed— Him. Despite it not yet being dark, despite the overhanging cornflower-blue sky of the approaching evening, it had taken me a while to discern his silhouette. Perhaps because Wakuu wasn’t moving at all. He stood near the fountain, motionless like a statue, staring at that broken string of lights.

I took a step, then another. Wakuu looked stiff, pale and white-lipped, every facial muscle contorted as if in pain or excessive concentration. Or both?

And another, and another. Not exactly creeping up, but something in the vein of.

He kept on glaring at the string. As soon as one bulb would light up, his eyes would fix on that bulb and remain fixed on it until the bulb’s extinguishing.

What about that thing was making him feel and look so tense, bordering on scared? Surely not the sparrows’ folly. Something personal? Professional? Was he thinking about stars going out inexplicably? Or perhaps about, umm, string theory? Something about the strings getting tangled in each other and presenting an unsolvable problem..? Shmulsolvable shmoblem…

No, I wouldn’t dare to start conversations of this kind with him; after all, neither Frank nor Noah were here, and I’d surely need a nice cold glass of beer to help me wash down that foot.

My knowledge was limited to what I’d learned online via reading dumbed-down articles in the popular press. Then again, had I even learned anything? Like many other things from many other infotainment pieces, string theory had been going into one ear, then, after dancing to the same loud circus music in my brain for several seconds, leaving through the other ear forever.

Besides, these weren’t tangled.

But it was definitely about the string.

He only noticed me when I touched his shoulder with the tips of my fingers. Wakuu flinched.

“Are you okay?” I asked, and regretted the question right away. It was all wrong, I should have phrased it differently.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m. I’m fine.” There was a rigid, darkened sound to these words. Wakuu took a shaky inhale through his nose. “What’s up?”

“Dog,” I whispered, continuing to study his face and how he was obviously not fine.

“Dog,” he agreed, then, without moving his head even a centimeter, pointed at Taco splashing and chomping away in the bowl of the fountain. A good joke, some solid thinking on his feet, but the delivery betrayed him; I could see that Wakuu's heart was not in it. And his fingers were trembling. “I’m fine,” he repeated in a hollow tone, hiding his hands in his pockets, then taking them out right away, fingers curled; and I wondered if he was trying to convince me — or himself.

“Is—”

“Are you aware of how old our galaxy is?” he asked all of a sudden, and I hoped against hope that it was a setup, although the majority of me sensed that there would be no punchline either way.

But I still followed the format. “How old is it?”

“Thirteen point sixty-one billion years old.”

“That’s a buttl— very old.”

“Yes. What about, how many stars are there in our galaxy?”

‘A buttload’ was still the best approximation I could give him. “Sorry, no idea. How many?”

“Roughly one hundred billion. In our galaxy alone. Do you know how many galaxies are out there?” This time he didn’t wait for my reply. His eyes looked glassy; he wasn’t blinking. “The most humble estimation is two hundred billion galaxies. But it’s likely much closer to a trillion. In the observable universe.”

‘Likely’ seemed like a very unscientific word, at least for his field. Was the unimaginable scope scaring him, and that was why he looked so browbeaten and disarranged? As reasons went, improbable; Wakuu must have known the scope since his childhood days, it must have been one of the first things he’d learned. Along, for instance, with the fact that the big bad in the sky that made his skin crave yogurt, was just a huge ball consisting of hydrogen and helium, so it wasn’t personal.

“I didn’t know that. Wh—” —y was he telling me this?

No sane person who couldn’t handle the scope would have chosen astronomy; like no one with hemophobia would have ever decided to become a surgeon. Because that would have been a bad dark-comedy joke, and those walked an exceptionally fine line between funny and dread.

“One hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone,” stated Wakuu in the same hollow, emotionless tone of voice, continuing to look at that broken string. “One hundred billion systems. Most of them have at least one planet. A lot of those planets could potentially support life. And—” He trailed off.

“How many?” I asked, figuratively poking him.

For some reason I didn’t want Wakuu to continue looking at the string. I felt a chill trickling down my spine; as if some of his odd state was being transferred to me.

“Nobody knows.”

“How about an approximation?”

“Let’s say, three hundred million.”

The Sanchez brothers, Rafael and Pablo, materialized on the square in a cloud of bickering and noise, dragging a whole suitcase of tools and a huge stepladder.

“Well, that’s great, right? It means that there might be a lot of life out there.”

He kept silent. Despite the handymen being loud, he paid them no mind. All of his mind was invested into somewhere else.

“...and someone might soon get Da Bomb off this rock. I hear he enjoys probing.”

The corner of Wakuu’s mouth twitched.

Had he been drinking? I couldn’t smell any alcohol on his breath.

“You’re a good person,” he exhaled all of a sudden, barely audible. The entirety of me ached to make a dirty joke in response, but something in his face made me abstain. Perhaps, everything in his face. The inner clash sounded, and stilled.

Facetiousness needed to have limits, even I understood that. Not everything needed a punchline.

Not everything had a possible punchline.

“Thank you. And, right back at you.”

“Thank you.”

I had no idea what came over me; I just knew that I had to do something, and the something might have been highly inappropriate, but I couldn't care less: I cupped his left cheek — cold so cold why was it so cold — pulling his face towards myself so he’d stop looking, leaned forward, and bumped the tip of my nose into his right cheek. And remained cupping and bumping, for a time, eyes closed. Maybe for a fraction of a second, maybe for a buttload of seconds.

His fingers closed around my elbow; it didn’t feel like he wanted to yank or push me aside. It felt like he was grounding himself. I opened my eyes and drew away just a tad. He was looking at me from up close.

“I’m— I merely got lost in my own thoughts, my apologies,” Wakuu lied and let his hand drop.

I stepped away.

“Right, see you—”

“At Fishensips?” he interrupted. “Like, maybe in half an hour? I’ll be around.”

“I’ll be around too.”

Rafi and Pablo had planted the stepladder under one of the two carrier lampposts; tool in hand, tool under the belt, tool in his front pocket, the tool that was Pablo climbed it. Instead of getting busy with the string, he proceeded to yell at his brother from above, continuing a meaningless squabble that had clearly started elsewhere and making the same, ever-present, mother-related accusations. Another bulb flickered out. Darkness.

At the edge of the square, I halted again and, bunching the hem of my yukata, swung around to throw another glance at Wakuu. He had finally turned away from the string of lights and the commotion around it. Now he was sitting sideways on the edge of the fountain bowl; the very, very edge, as if feeling reluctant if he was even allowed. Taco huffed and poked his boxing-glove nose and his bristly, red-and-white muzzle into Wakuu’s cupped palm. It was still shaking, but as he petted Taco’s cheeks and scruff, the tremor gradually dissolved, and I saw his bloodless, flattened facial features coming alive again, stretching into a tiny smile, in slow motion. Then, in even slower motion, his long neck started guiding his darkened head towards me. Briskly, I stopped gawking and went on walking, feeling his gaze on my back.