“Well, don’t expect a feast. I’ll be quick,” he adds. “You can just stay here.”
I follow him into the kitchen anyway and lean one shoulder against the fridge, quietly observing him. He works his way around the cabinets with the ease of someone who cooks for himself all the time. He grabs four ripe red tomatoes, a few thin stalks of green onion, sprigs of coriander. Washes them thoroughly and sets them out on the counter. Cracks three eggs into a bowl and whisks those with one hand while he reaches for the salt.
Heisquick. Soon he has the tomatoes peeled and sliced on the juice-stained cutting board, the water bubbling in a pot, the range hood humming over the stove.
“Okay, turn around,” he tells me.
“Why?”
“I have to add the special ingredient, but nobody’s allowed to know what it is,” he says very seriously.
I gesture to myself. “Not even me?”
“You’re the only person I’ve ever made this for, except myself. So no. Not you,” he says.
“You better not poison me,” I say dryly, but I cooperate by turning and fixing my eyes on the dozens of magnets on the refrigerator door. There’s no pattern or aesthetic to them: a porcelain cat licking its paw, a postcard-worthy miniature painting of the Great Wall, a wooden carving of a bamboogrove. “Where are these from?” I ask him, pointing to the magnets.
“All over the place. Tourist shops. Random malls. Train stations. I was obsessed with collecting them when I was, like, seven.” Then, casually, in the same breath: “And just for the record, I’m not going to poison you. Has anyone ever told you that you might have trust issues?”
“I wouldn’t have trust issues if people weren’t so hard to trust,” I say.
From behind me, I can hear the crinkle of plastic as he tears something open, the tap of chopsticks against the edge of the pot when he stirs. If it were anyone else, they’d probably counter this, make a moving little speech about how there’s an abundance of goodin the world and I should open up my heart and stop being so cynical, but all he says is, “That’s fair.”
When the egg-and-tomato noodles are ready, he brings the bowls over to the breakfast nook, where a single striped sofa is fitted against the wall.
“Careful, it’s hot,” he warns, setting my bowl down before sliding onto the sofa next to me. He hands over a pair of chopsticks and motions for me to try it.
I blow on the noodles to cool them, then take a small, tentative bite. Then another. Then another, much more generous bite. Then I give up on trying to look elegant and tie my hair into a ponytail, leaning all the way forward to slurp the noodles straight from the bowl. “Wait, this is really good,” I say in surprise. “Like,reallygood.” The eggs are perfectly fluffy, thesour kick of the tomato juice balanced by the fresh fragrance of chives and some kind of spice. It’s a familiar flavor. I’ve finished half the bowl when I realize: “Is your special ingredient... ramen powder?”
The corner of his mouth ticks up. “Possibly.”
I snort. “Okay, I feel like I shouldn’t give you too much credit, but this might actually be the best use of ramen powder I’ve ever tasted.”
“You should eat more, then,” he says. “You can have some of mine too.”
And maybe it’s the way he looks in the soft kitchen light—the angles of his face less imposing, his eyes more of a liquid gold than their usual midnight black, his hair mussed and falling over his brows—or the fact that my stomach feels full for the first time in forever, or the drowsiness addling my brain, but I feel a curl of something hot inside my chest. Something adjacent to desire, but heavier, more destructive.
“So what else can you make?” I ask, determined to ignore the feeling.
He shrugs. “Your usual dishes. Pork ribs, wontons, stir-fry, scallion pancakes, braised chicken wings, a bunch of different soups. I learned to cook for my brother, so...”
I latch on to this tiny piece of information, the rare glimpse into his family life. You’d think he was born out of a void and has lived alone ever since, looking at his house now: no portraits, no second set of headphones, no traces of his father’s existence. The only spare mug in the kitchen is the one I’ve been using when I come over. “You learned to cook just for your brother?”I ask, treading carefully, like someone approaching an easily startled bird in the woods.
“He was a super picky eater,” Ares says, his gaze distant now, like he’s looking through the air into time itself. “It was his only problem; he was the perfect child in every other way. My father hired about twenty different chefs, and none of them lasted longer than a couple months at our house. So I thought I’d try it myself—I searched up tutorials online and experimented with different dishes until I made something my brother liked.
“I remember this one time, I made him Coca-Cola chicken wings, and he ate twelve of them in a single sitting. My father was so happy that night. He was only happy when Luke was happy. It was the first time he ever complimented me.”
“He’s lucky to have you,” I say softly. “You’re a good brother.”
Something tightens in his expression, and the look on his face makes my throat constrict. The guilt there. The intense self-loathing, so stark and tangible it could have been carved into his features by a honed knife. “No,” he says, but he seems more to be talking to himself. “No, I’m really not.”
Then, as though becoming fully aware of my attention, that dark, wretched look falls away, a cool mask sliding into place. He clears his throat and shifts back in his seat. “You think you’re prepared for the math test tomorrow?”
I let him change the subject. “I don’t know. I guess my math mentor has been pretty decent.”
“You’re pretty decent too,” he says.
“In general?”
