Whaddya mean, ‘perhaps’ the biggest?!

The moon, full and heavy and as bitter as yuzu peel, floated over an island. An island that looked as though one of those Best People On The Planet had baked a cake and set it afloat, the tongue of the sea lapping up the frosting until there were only picayune ridges and humps left, with the highest remaining bit crowned in the melting birthday candle of an observatory.

As I stood at the prow of a chicken boat, the Island said to me, “Come forth and you shall be saved, and all the pain will gain an outlet and thus its meaning revealed. But know ye this. You are forever banished from your homeland if you choose to come. Will you? Yes or no?”

But wasn’t I already banished forever? There was no going back. I looked down; the moon was in the boat with me, the round and pregnant belly of a muse.

The moon spoke to me too. The voice came out of her and corkscrewed into me, and I could hear it both with my ears and with the place between them, the place where a laughing pit beckoned.

“Come, little star. I’ll make the journey worth your while,” the voice of the moon whispered, the words a-tickling. “That place will give you back all of the stories that have been lost.” She smiled, her mouth a bright crescent, her eyes blacker than the side facing the void.

“Will you? Yes or no?” the Island demanded again. Instead of answering, I simply watched it getting closer. The seagulls were diving into the ocean to scoop the silver of the waves into their throats.

The boat suddenly felt lighter; now carrying one more passenger.

He said, “I’d call you something, too. Something not stupid. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Akaboshi,” I pitched; not in a bout of self-deprecation, not even as a joke, but because the bath water felt scaldingly hot.

“So am I.” He showed me his hand. Pruney and reddened, just like mine. One finger, missing. Just like on mine. And who cares how precisely it got cut off. “But no, not that.”

“Chīsana hoshi, then?” The glass between us shattered into dust.

“Hoshidesu,” he corrected. “Anata wa watashi no chīsana hoshidesu. Have you decided what you will call me?”

“Im poqrik petury. My little feather.”

“That’s already my name. Forever.”

I clung to him; so that, weightless, he wouldn’t fly away into the real stars. “Exactly. The names that they give us define our fate, one way or another. It’s pointless to struggle.”

“What are you waiting for?!” the black skies below us chided, in my mother’s voice. “

Astghik!

Astghik, stop dilly-dallying and finish it, it’s good for you. No dessert until you eat your okra!”

I woke up with the mother of all headaches.

~*~ “First off, we need to get my dad laid,” said Wakuu.

I choked on a taco; unlike choking on his cock yesterday, this snag was not funny at all — despite how my brain threw in a record-scratch noise. The stingingly sour green salsa went right up my nose. Tears flooded my eyes as I coughed and hacked and wheezed for air, doubling over on the bench. The remains of the taco slipped from my fingers and fell down onto the grassy ground with a sad thud.

Wakuu rushed to my aid; he pounded me on the back with his palm, then uncapped a bottle of water and handed it to me as I unbent myself.

It was a beautiful day. Bright, warm, sunny yet not too hot, the sky was clear blue, the sea was calm, no clouds in sight; a gentle breeze was blowing, carrying with it the scent of the ocean and flowers in bloom and freshly cut grass, and the uncouth sparrows were chirping, and blah-blaaaah... Friday.

I’d woken up into this beautiful Friday with one of the worst hangovers of my life, disproportionate to the amount of alcohol consumed; feeling that I might throw up any second, with my head trapped in a circlet made of steel, my eyes burning with dryness, my mouth as parched as if it had been filled with cotton overnight, and my entire body screaming in protest whenever I even thought of moving my limbs. Well, my mind, at least, was somewhat intact, as was my memory of yesterday. There were some gaps, but they felt either bristly or insignificant. Point being, I remembered: I had a boyfriend now. I was someone’s girlfriend. Whether or not that was destined to end at midday, when we’d talk again and maybe decide to hit the brakes, the notion felt comforting. It helped me gather all of my strength and successfully fall out of the bed. By lunchtime, having rehydrated (Yuri sent the liquid, along with ‘a little something special for hangovers’, right into my veins by way of an IV), and having swallowed a few pills for good measure, I was doing better. When we met by the wooden tables next to Emma’s Taco Truck at half past thirteen, I concluded that Wakuu’s memory was intact too. It wasn’t hard to tell; the greeting he offered me was a kiss. Short and tentative; a question. I gave a prolonged and heartfelt answer. We got some food and sat down.

Then he went ahead and blurted out this shocker, almost right away.

“Your. Dad,” I echoed in an unintentionally low and hoarse voice, in between sips of water. “Laid.”

Wakuu nodded. “Indeed. Preferably before eleven o’clock tomorrow.”

Eyes goggled like full moons, I peered at him peering back at me. Either he’d mastered a god-like tier of deadpanning or was being dead serious.

“Look, no offense, but this level of filial devotion is excessive, even with your upbringing. I was under the impression that you’re after getting yourself laid.”

“Oh, I am now.” Brow furrowed, Wakuu reached out, grabbed my wrist, and pulled my palm towards himself. He proceeded to wipe it clean with a paper napkin, while talking in a firm and businesslike tone of voice, “It’s only logical. Think about it. He’s not feeble, yet is perpetually in seclusion in the lighthouse and his own head. He barely socializes, is never physical with anyone, although with him being human, I would dare to believe that he misses it. Perhaps subconsciously. But he might have lost any and all associated skills. He hasn’t dated in years. And I know that an attempt to talk him into trying something serious off the bat, well, that would be a waste of breath.” Discarding the napkin, Wakuu shuffled closer to me, fingers still curled around my wrist. I wasn’t pulling my hand away either. Still starved for touch; would be starved for some time. “It’s not like I mind babysitting him every weekend, but your weekends are free, and for this to work,” Wakuu poked his index finger into my lifeline, then pointed at himself, “I need to carve out some time out of my schedule. As soon as possible, because, believe it or not, I’d like to spend the upcoming weekend elsewhere. I need to toss him a reminder that his life is not over and that there’s more to it than— And so, how do I approach the problem?” Expectant, Wakuu paused, inquisitively raising his eyebrows at me.

“You get your dad laid,” I whispered in defeat, through a crooked little smile.

“We,” corrected Wakuu, mirroring that smile. “This project calls for an assistant.”

I play-acted a sour face. “Hmm, how much extra credit upon completion?”

“At least two if you don’t stop me like yesterday,” he said, suddenly looking as cheeky as I’d never seen him look before. “More if we don’t black out.”

Feeling my face grow warmer, I nudged Wakuu’s shoulder with my spare hand and threw him a gigantic breadcrumb of a setup, “I’m in.”

Wakuu caught it in a blink of an eye. “That’s my line.” He tickled my wrist before letting go and facing the table.

“Your punch line, yes, Mr. Sexy. Wow, look at this, we actually are flirting for real.”

“We actually are...” His mischievous smirk morphed into an earnest expression of surprise; Wakuu raised his head and stared into a distant nowhere, for a few seconds. When his gaze returned to my face, he gave a cute-doofus smile and made his eyebrows dance. His voice dropped to a low whisper as he leaned towards me, “So what do you think, am I any good at it?”

He was so close that in his dark-brown irises I could see the tiny specks of green, which had been rendered almost invisible by the sheer brightness of daylight.

“You are. And you were great last night, as well,” I murmured, leaning forward, too, as if pulled in by magnetic attraction. My nose was almost touching his. “So great. No joke.”

Wakuu rubbed his forehead against mine. I covered the short distance left between our lips by tipping my chin forward; a little smooch that was supposed to last less than a second. But he caught me and deepened the kiss.

With the lunch rush all but over, it was pretty empty around the truck. Plus, I guessed that yesterday’s experience had emboldened us both in regards to kissing in public; yesterday’s public neither looked nor cared.

His mouth was warm, the pressure gentle, his tongue tasting of lime and cumin, and our lips melted together, and the kiss grew even deeper— Someone wolf-whistled. Wakuu flinched, veering back as if stung, with his ears tinged red at the rims; we whipped our heads to the left, in unison.

Pablo Sanchez was sending a bawdy grin in our direction, frozen over the trash bin with a sauce-stained paper plate in hand. He waggled his eyebrows up and down so vigorously that I wished I could have pumped them full of alprazolam. Unlike Wakuu, he was doing it in a straightforward manner; unironic, bordering on invasive.

His face, body language, everything about his expression, conveyed that he was utterly invested in us having sex — while also wishing to remind us that sex was supposed to be kept secret, and we were supposed to feel ashamed. The usual stuff, and Pablo had no boundaries. Perhaps no fault, either; culturally ingrained meant culturally ingrained, upbringing meant upbringing, and peer pressure pressured until it bent. Of course, there was always self-awareness, but Pablo had a long way to climb before he’d reach it... At once, I felt glad that he skipped on Fishensips last night.

I leveled a glowering scowl at him, tossed my arm up and used the gesture which universally, and in his native culture, meant ‘five’ or, perhaps, ‘I wanted to say hi, but I have osteoarthritis in my fingers’, and in the culture of Wakuu’s academic supervisor Professor Stavrou meant ‘fuck off and die’. Pablo’s grin dissipated, the rowdiness of his eyebrows morphed into knitted-together confusion (‘five what..? take five? or what?’), followed by a dismissive shrug as I continued glaring. He threw the paper plate into the trash and took off.

Hanging his head, Wakuu softly chuckled towards the table, and I turned to find the earring cat tilting her head and eyeing me with smug approval. Both Wakuu and the cat had understood that my gesture was a moútza; it felt nice to be understood. It felt nice to share a unique language, no matter how patchwork. Really, really nice.

“Usually,” he started, returning his attention to the food by moving the plate closer, “other people’s lack of context is frustrating. But this was—”

“Oddly satisfying, yes,” I confirmed, fascinated and endeared by how his bangs, once more slightly curled because of the humidity, framed his forehead. “Alright, back to getting your dad laid. Do you have a plan?”

His voice picked up a serious edge again, although his eyes were still sparkling with mirth, “A rough outline of it, yes.”

While gathering his thoughts, Wakuu pinched a taco, bringing the edges of the small tortilla together. He absentmindedly stabbed through them with a toothpick once, and put the latter away.

In movies, they always used a sheet of paper whenever they needed to explain wormholes; so often that the scene had become an eyeroll-inducing cliche. Why the heck was no one ever using tacos for that?! Tacos would have revitalized the trope in no time. And they were round, too!

He took a large yet neat bite of a galaxy.

“Lay it on me, do it slow,” I whispered sultrily.

Wakuu was a clean eater with impeccable table manners; the reply, if there was one, got detained in his mouth as he struggled to keep it closed, continue chewing, and keep his smile from growing too wide.

Gosh, I loved his smile and how infectious it was.

After eyeing the taco I’d lost, now scattered on the grass, I sighed, slung my legs over the bench, properly sat at the table, too, and took a few seconds to appreciate the tacos that I still had left before proceeding to inhale them.

Wakuu swallowed his food. His eyes drifting into focus, he said in an equally focused voice, all humor gone, “Father doesn’t visit town often, so he isn’t aware of its new demographic makeup. His notions are somewhat outdated.”

Of course we had no intention to act as pimps. Merely to organize a proper date. According to Wakuu, we’d either be capable of being charming and eloquent enough, or, if that would not work out, behave as exasperated kids and push on the pity-generator; I agreed with that assessment. We even quickly rehearsed some routines. Perhaps it would end up being awkward and stupid, but we felt overfull with determination, immune to cringe, and unafraid. It seemed that now, when we’d finally made a decision to Get It and Go With It after waltzing around the idea for weeks, we would stop at nothing in order to Hold On To It.

In other words, we really wanted to get literally naked together and to continue doing so as much as possible. To get figuratively naked and to get tacos together, too, but mainly that first part at the moment... Starved.

I still barely knew anything about Wataru, but, by all indications, he was reputable and hardworking. Also, rugged. Tall, big, and strong. Sure, not a silver fox, but definitely a silver uuuhm bear? Mammoth? Wataru’s aloofness and taciturnity, although detrimental to his own life and wellbeing, would serve as attractors in this scenario and be interpreted as mysteriousness; a lot of ladies carried their emotionally-unavailable-father issues into their own old age and sometimes took those to their graves... And he lived in a lighthouse, for crying out loud! Would that not be a romantic selling point? Plus, that whole thing about him being a single father, which demonstrated that he was dutiful and responsible. In fact, my misunderstanding of the reason for it might have been fueled by overhearing that he was a widower, from—

“Betty? Yes, no?”

Wakuu swayed his head from side to side, assessing. “I hiiighly doubt that she’d be interested right now. But sure, worth a try.”

The task was gradually taking on the properties of a scavenger hunt as we continued going through the list of eligible single ladies of appropriate age. It was a short list, as we lived in a small town. However, we made a unanimous decision to exclude Judge Ross. Wiry and stern, wearing pantsuits and heels in any weather, seemingly never sweating, possessing the rigid beauty and peril of snow-covered mountain caps, she intimidated us both, and we concluded that, after hearing our bold pitch, not only would she not be interested — she might also beat us to death with a caliper or a wooden pointer. Or with a certain stick. After getting it out. Of a certain place.

Although Wakuu lingered. “Aren’t we stereotyping?”

We were.

“I don’t care if we are,” I countered and trembled with my entire body. “She scares the tacos out of me. I don’t even know her first name!”

“Nobody does,” Wakuu said, following it up with a somber nod, as if recalling an episode that was better left forgotten. “Okay, no Ross.”

“Zero Ross. Oh. What about tourists? No tourists?”

There were tourists aplenty on the island, some of them eligible and quite interested in locals. Some had voiced an intent to visit yearly, or so I’d heard. There was talk of a timeshare. Yet I understood the reluctance we both felt, embodied in the long pensive pause that followed. Tourists were fleeting entities.

Wakuu and I were what uninformed and sentimental people liked to dub ‘old souls’. In truth, this topsy-turvy reversal of emotional labor was caused by our overall experiences, trauma, and caretaker-adjacent personalities. Especially in him. We had indeed exchanged places with our parents, in a way, and no responsible parent I knew would have been content with their child subsisting on hook-ups and first dates that always ended up being the last. No matter what Wakuu said, I strongly suspected that, in his heart, he wanted his father to find someone special off the bat; someone who could stay for a long time, perhaps forever. Someone who could be family.

“Tourists are going to be plan C,” he finally decided and took a bite off his last taco, chewing slowly, eyes narrowed in thought.

“What’s plan B?”

“For now? Smuggle you into the lighthouse when he’s asleep, then we do our best to stay quiet, then sneak you out before he wakes up.”

“Yaaaay...” I lamented, giving a theatrical sigh, and feebly shook my fist up in the air. “I can be a teenager agaaain...”

“We!” Wakuu reminded me, louder, grinning as he reached over to boop the tip of my nose with his index finger.

“We,” I agreed, once again mirroring his smile, and caught his hand by the wrist before it could retreat. I brought it back to my face, and Wakuu cupped my cheek, stroking back and forth. Turning my head, I kissed the heel of his palm. He held it in place for a while longer before pulling his hand back, although not without briefly caressing my chin first.

I wanted this to stick around and become mundane. Normal. No, we. We wanted this to become mundane and normal. His eyes held just as much disbelief and awe as did mine.

“Okay,” I exhaled, returning us both to the topic, as we were pressed for time. “But even if someone says yes, that still leaves your dad himself. Would he be willing to..?”

“I’ll do my best to convince him to try. But if he pushes back, I am going to put my foot down. Softly.” He was picking at a paper napkin on the table, folding it into smaller and smaller triangles. “You said so yourself, communication, right? I’m going to directly communicate to him that we need to do something about his situation.” Wakuu sighed. It was clear that he wanted to communicate something else, yet was reluctant.

I continued staring.

“What?”

“Spill it,” I demanded, pointing at him.

He grimaced.

I poked his shoulder. “Shmommunication. Spill it, come on.”

Wakuu gave another heavy sigh. “Just— There’s a strong chance that he’s going to guilt-trip me. Hard. I know he might, because it’s his shtick and it’s happened before, even when I merely implied— He’s relying too much on the care that I provide, to the point where it’s taking on the telltale signs of a codependent relationship on his part. Yet he’s my father, and he raised me alone, so I feel responsible, and also—” He trailed off and wiped his face with his palm, eyes wide, tired, and apprehensive.

“Pressured,” I suggested.

“Just so. But spending a few years abroad gave me a perspective. This particular situation, it— It’s unhealthy. It does need to change regardless. But I didn’t want to spill it, I mean, to say anything, because I’m scared that— Because I don’t want you to feel guilty, or like you’re disrupting something, or like you’ve done something wrong, if he tries—” Wakuu shook his head, looking mournful. “I’d hate for you to feel guilty.”

“Right back at you. I’d also hate for you to feel guilty for no good reason.”

We exchanged a long look. With my eyes, I attempted to communicate one more thing — without voicing it. For now. People could be so merciful towards others, especially those they thought similar to them, yet people were so rarely merciful towards themselves.

“You know why precisely dad jokes are called dad jokes?” I asked, murdering the silence.

He lingered for a moment before pleading, “Why?”

“Their characteristics boil down to,” I counted on my fingers, “bad, cringe, almost guaranteed to cause groaning and eye-rolling, never offensive or controversial, always g-rated, always distracting everyone from whatever they were doing and attracting their attention to the jokester himself, so that they could immediately turn him into the butt of the joke. Even if, prior to him telling the joke, a tense situation or a conflict was brewing. They’re often puns, simply because it’s easier to hit all of the aforementioned bullet points with a pun. Dad jokes are called thusly because hello, patriarchy, but, really, they should have been called Caretaker jokes. Junior medical professionals use them all the time, too, by the way. By telling such a joke, the Caretaker purposefully sacrifices his dignity, himself, for those in his care, and makes himself a target, redirecting their attention, taking on the responsibility and adjacent guilt. Shielding them from harm, pain, ridicule, instead saddling himself with everything, while they unite against him in an effort to mock his ineptness, with their sorrows and disagreements temporarily forgotten. That’s why.”

Wakuu held my gaze.

“And they’re shit. These jokes? They’re utter shit. Always. They are bad not because they’re never funny, but because they are a temporary solution.”

“I’m good at puns,” Wakuu said breathlessly, fumbling for my hand.

“So am I,” I replied, squeezing his fingers.

Sitting sideways, we pulled each other into as tight an embrace as we could. Wakuu rubbed his cheek against m— Someone wolf-whistled.

“Oh for fuu—arghhhh!” The word morphed into a snarl in my mouth.

We drew away from one another and whipped our heads to the right, in unison. Chaem’s back was to us, and she was studying the new, expanded menu, clearly impressed by it.

“Curried avocados, come to mama!” she decided out loud, concluding her celebration, and we both shook with soundless laughter as she approached the truck’s window to order.

Emma’s hands passed her a plate, Chaem gave us both a short wave, sat away, and proceeded to eat at top speed. That outburst of joy by the truck seemed ostentatious now; a defense mechanism. As she ate, she was as sullen as yesterday at Fishensips, perhaps even more so.

“She’s leaving the day after tomorrow, right?” I recalled.

“Yeah. For a few weeks at least.” Wakuu edged closer to me. Our thighs and shoulders were touching, our hands entwined.

“She’s been kinda ... gloomy. Is she nervous? Because of the championship?”

“Maybe. It’s the first time they’re going international,” Wakuu said but then shook his head. “Actually, I think it’s mostly because of her—uh, I don’t know what she was. Best friend or girlfriend. Aaliyah. Frank and Noah’s older sister. Was a much better handyman than Pablo or Rafi. Was the one doing maintenance at Fishensips. Hence. That thing with—” Cutting himself off, he winced, then pointed up. “With the speakers.”

“Was,” I repeated in a dull tone of voice, my eyes following the trajectory of his finger, my heart sinking into my belly. “Is she d—”

“An astronaut.”

The last thing I expected. “You’re shitting me.”

“Not at all. She left for the program about half a year before your arrival. Went up just last week.” He pointed up again, without looking. “Everyone was in agreement to be silent about it, out of, uh.” Once more, Wakuu made a face and abstained from finishing the phrase.

Once more, I helped. “Out of superstition?”

“Yes,” he replied on the wings of a weary sigh.

“Wow. This town. Supplied. An astronaut?”

“Yup.”

“Wow.” And yet I could not focus on marveling in awe. All I could think about were the implications for her family. Chaem, whatever this Aaliyah was, or had been, to her. Frank’s distracted state, and how irritable and snippy Noah had been lately; all of these occurrences made so much more sense now. How their mother Betty wasn’t showing up at all, likely bedridden, sick with worry... No wonder Wakuu said what he said about her. I wanted to, but I could not bring myself to marvel.

“Do you think Chaem needs c—”

“A friend,” he interrupted. “She needs a friend. Friends. I’ve been trying lately.”

“I should, too. I— We should make a sortie for the next game they’re playing, while they’re still in the country. I mean, if you’ll have time and if you’d, uhm.”

“We should, yes. Also, I’m getting laser vision-correction surgery in Tosaka soon, so—”

“Ohhh, I get to be the naked leading the blind?”

“Please.”

We needed to go. We hated to go. We’d meet in the evening, and replace what could have been a date with bringing our plan to fruition. Hopefully, that would give us more time together in the long run. I gathered the mangled remains of my taco off the ground, threw the trash into the trash, and turned back to Wakuu.

“Promise we’ll talk more about it later? This whole responsibility and guilt snag?”

“I promise,” he said firmly, nodding, wistful.

“And that we’d also do it while naked and sweaty?”

I saw his cheeks already surrendering to a blush as he still fought against a playful smile. Wakuu offered me his pinky. “A sacred oath.”