“Good,” he began to say.
“Because I’m going to help you study!” Lydia pulled a creased and heavily annotated Statistics textbook out of nowhere. “I decided to do Trish a solid and ask her crush to swing by my place to pick this up while her grandma was teaching me how to make these cabbage rolls.”
She plopped it down on the table. “In the words of the Imperial Chinese Army, ‘Mister, I’ll make a man capable of passing Statistics out of you.’”
The decidedly non-Disney-loving Yom suspected three things at this point:
1. These were not words actually attributed to the Imperial Chinese Army.
2. He would not be heading straight upstairs to sleep.
3. This would not be the last surprise Lydia had in store for him over the weeks to come.
Lydia
The monthof February did not clear up any of my confusion when it came to Yom. I barely got through the audiobook ofJane Eyreas a high school senior. But as a college senior, I felt a whole lot more sympathy for the main character.
As much as I’d spent the last three years feeling like the boring, straight, Black best friend to Trish’s colorful main-character energy, I was starting to suspect I’d somehow become the star of my own low-stakes mystery novel calledWhere the Hell Do I Stand With Yom Rustanov?
However, over the next few weeks, we settled into a surprisingly pleasant routine. I hadn’t realized how nice it was to have someone to eat with or to feel another person’s touch—until I got used to holding hands and sharing meals twice a day with the university’s star hockey player.
Yom’s schedule was the busy I never could have comprehended before living with a Division I athlete: two games a week, practices every non-game day, and at least two hours a day of weightlifting, cardio, and conditioning in the downstairs gym.On top of all that, he had a senior load of homework and after-dinner Statistics study sessions with me.
Yet he made it to dinner every night by 7 p.m.—earlier if he had a game afterward. And when he didn’t have a game, instead of going out after our Statistics study sessions, he chose to “study” next to me on the couch in the living room.
The study haven had freed up so much time that I’d fallen into the habit of catching up on all the shows waiting in my Crunchyroll account after dinner. Yom was very on record as not understanding why I liked these “Japanese cartoons.” But he often peered over his laptop or even set it aside to ask me irritated questions.
“So, they are identical twins, but they are in love with each other, and still, they are flirting with girls?”
“Um…” I answered, not sure how to explain the weird twin-brother relationship inOuran High School Host Club.
“Why is he not admitting he is liking her?” Yom demanded during an episode ofToradora!, no longer even pretending to be more interested in the work on his laptop.
“Because he’s not ready to confess his feelings. To her or himself,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “It’s kind of sweet, in a frustrating, slow-burn way.”
“Is it?” Yom narrowed his eyes in annoyance.
And a few weeks later, he squinted even harder as the credits on the last episode ofApril Flower Marriagerolled.
“So they are never becoming couple, then?”
“No, they’re fully in love and happily married,” I assured him, dabbing happy tears from my eyes with my Gemidgee Animal Shelter hoodie.
“But he is never kissing her! Or even holding her hand. They are only ever bowing to each other.”
“I mean, I guess that was kind of the culture in 1920s Japan. Subtle.” My mouth quirked upward at the irony of Yom complaining about a male character from ajoseianime not being super-clear about his intentions. “I guess not everyone’s as romantic as you?”
He went very still, and his stormy-gray eyes met mine.
“You think I am being romantic to you?” His voice was low, serious, and too close for comfort.
“I, um…” had no idea how to answer that. Without asking a whole bunch of questions. Which wasn’t allowed.
My breath hitched in my throat. The room felt suddenly smaller, warmer, and charged with something I didn’t know how to name.
“I mean, you…” I faltered, my words tripping over themselves. “You seem like the type who would go all out—like, be totally all in when—if you cared about someone.”
I peeped up at him. All the questions I was forbidden to ask sparking in the air like static electricity.
