Our food arrives ten minutes later, fresh from the kitchen

Our food arrives ten minutes later, fresh from the kitchen. It's a different, older waitress this time who hands it to us, one Ki doesn't recognise. She has a scowl on her heavily caked face as she turns away from Issa and places the plates and napkin-wrapped chopsticks down.

"I...uhh," Issa scratches the back of his neck, "Can I get a spoon and fork instead?"

"Tch. Do you not know how to use chopsticks?"

"No, unfortunately. I don't...?"

She turns towards Ki again with a glare.

"Teach boyfriend how to use chopsticks," She says to him in angry Korean,

"Learn before coming here," She faces Issa and tells him English, before going off to another table.

"Just because he's gay...!" Ki replies to her back in Korean," I'm not his..."

He sighs, resting his head in his hands.

"I don't understand Korean...but I take it that means no cutlery?" He asks with wide eyes.

I try and laugh what she said off, "Looks like I'm going to have run you through a quick crash course on chopstick usage."

Issa picks them up clumsily, "Aren't they supposed to be round?"

"You're thinking of Chinese and Japanese style chopsticks," I pause to think about it, "Well, Japanese. Chinese have more of a rectangular shape. At least, that's what Misumi told me."

"Kinda interesting to know there are different styles of chopsticks," Issa watches Ki pick up his own chopsticks.

"Of course there are. There's a whole spectrum of chopstick styles just like how everything has a spectrum. That or the age-old founders of the Koreas wanted to be 'quirky'." Ki points out to Issa his finger placement with the chopsticks.

"Well, everyone wants to be quirky and stand-out, right?"

"...Sure." Ki says, correcting Issa's hold.

----------------------

Issa's given up and has resorted to using the edge of his plate to push his food onto his spoon.

"You know you almost had it," Ki assures, chugging some water down after taking bites of his kimchi jigae.

"Mhm," Issa wolfs down the haemul pajeon, clearly enjoying himself, "You're just saying that to be nice."

"No, I'm serious. It took you five minutes to come close to properly using them. It took me three years?"

"Don't you always use chopsticks at home?"

"Well, we do now. But when I was younger I was the only East Asian kid and everyone else in my class was white, so I refused to use chopsticks. They'd always complain about me smelling about kimchi and dog or some shit and that ended up getting to me. I pity my mom for having to deal with my tantrums about me wanting lunchables and a fork and spoon to eat with."

Issa stops eating and nudges Ki's foot under the table in an attempt to comfort him without ruffling the feathers of others in the room, "Damn. That sounds rough."

"Mhm. The only reason my mom buckled was because she found out I was starving myself at lunch by binning the Korean food she gave me and hiding the chopsticks. Looking back it now there was definitely some internalized racism I was dealing with. S'pose that's what you get being first gen in the early 2000s."

"Why'd you call yourself first generation immigrant? Weren't you born here?"

He takes a sip of broth"Nah, I wasn't born here. I was born in Honolulu. Basically all my family live there. People give me weird looks when I say I've never been to South Korea. Not to mention they think I'm Chinese most of the time. And when they correctly guess I'm Korean, they absolutely slaughter the pronounciation of annyeonghaseyo."

"Yay...?"

"Nay." Another sip.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, my mamá says my Spanish is fine but my tías in the D.R are always complaining that I have an accent. I think it's just them being petty because I'm not biologically related to them."

Ki hushes down, "You sure it's not just them being homophobic?"

"I mean, maybe. My gran's two sisters are the only ones I know who openly don't agree with me being gay, and or me having two moms. Who knows?!"Issa throws his hands up and a piece of scallion falls onto the table.

"Ah." Ki nods, finishing up his bowl, "Cool. Cool. Coolcoolcoolcoolcoolcoolcoolcool. Don't look behind you but there are people staring."

Issa looks behind him.

Are you fucking kidding me?

"Yeeeeesh...that's a lot of eyes," Issa turns back towards Ki, "You wanna get outta here?"

Ki sets his cutlery down and calls for a cheque, "Oh, yes please."

----------------------

"You know you don't have to walk me back to my flat. It's only a three-or-so minute walk from the Korean restaurant to my place."

"I know," Issa shrugs, "Just..."

He hesitates.

"My car is parked in a lot just around the corner from your place so may as well...?"

"You don't sound sure."

"I'm sure I sounded sure."

"I'm sure you didn't sound sure that you were sure. Are you sure that you know where you parked?"

"Yup."

"Because there isn't a public parking lot this far up the highstreet. And there's no pavement space to street park."

Issa stops walking and Ki laughs at his panicked face, "Well I'm fucked then."

"I forget my oyster card, you forget your car. Seems fair," The Korean smirks at Issa's misfortune and quickly leaps into a speedwalk when Issa punches his shoulder.

Issa chases after him, struggling to compete against Ki's lankiness, "This isn't fucking funny, Ki!"

"Kind of is."

"It isn't!" He manages to land another punch on Ki's shoulder.

"Ow!" Ki slows down as they approach the street corner where Ki's flat is, rubbing his shoulder, "Agree to disagree."

"Jeez... if my car isn't up this end I don't know where it could be," He lets out a sigh of exasperation, "Dammit, all the streets this area of town looks the same."

"I know. You get used to it after a while and just learn your way around from muscle memory."

Ki's phone pings and he pulls it out of his pocket.

swiss misi: wallelujah my brother FINALLY has a social life

Ki looks up at one of the flat windows to see Misumi, fresh back from school and still in her maroon uniform, waving. With a flourish of his wrists he's got two middle fingers stuck up at her. 'Fuck you' he mouths.

"Wow. Such a loving and caring sibling relationship," Issa laughs, glancing at Misumi, then lingers on Ki. He doesn't notice Misi pick her phone up and start typing again from her window.

swiss misi: i see the orgy you just came back from has made you irritable

She marries together several faces and an obscene hand gesture to demonstrate.

"Oh jesus. Get away from the window you nasty!" Ki waves her away and she laughs, before dissapearing behind a curtain.

"Does she do that a lot?"

"Yup. Of course. It's my sister we're talking about here. We're like two, non-biologically-related-but-still-act-like-we-share-the-same-brain peas in a pod."

"That's a pretty specific description."

"Well, I gotta explain it somehow."

Issa shrugs, "You don't have explain everything. Not everything needs a label attached."

"I beg to differ."

"Well, agree to disagree."

Ki nods in approval, "Smooth. Very smooth."

"Thank you," He claps his hands together, "Now then, any guesses as to where you think my car might actually be?"

"I'd say your best bet is back down the highstreet near the chippy."

"Well, I s'pose I'll get back down there then. See you around, Kiwi," Issa awakwardly fingerguns at him.

Ki smiles back at him, "Alright. Let's see who forgets something important next time."

"It's gonna be..." He fingerguns, "You."

"You betting on it?" Issa laughs, walking backwards.

Ki shrugs, slowly getting out his keys, "Of course! Gotta make some fun out of our mutual memory loss."

They wave at each other one last time, Issa stopping to wait until Ki is around the back of the building and out of sight. Ki unlocks the back door of the bakery and calls in to ask whether his mom needs any help. When no reply echoes back, he clambers up the external metal stairs to the flat above and immediately searches for his sister.

"Huzzah motherfucker!" Misumi throws their bedroom's poundland plastic bin over Ki's head as he enters their shared bedroom.

"You took out the rubbish...for the first time in your life," He pulls the plastic bin off his head, "Just to do that."

"...Yes." Misumi twiddles her thumbs together, "...I thought it would be funnier."

"It's a shame you decided to do that. It will be both the first," He clenches the bin in his hand, "And last."

He lunges at Misumi with the bin and she dodges it expertly, jumping and rolling over her bed.

Ki yanks at the duvet and she falls off the bed, "Come back here!"

"I'm too young to die, evil beast!" Misumi takes hold of a rolled up poster at her bedside and makes wild jabs at Ki as she stands up. She thunks him over the head with the poster and he sits back onto Misi's bed. She continues her onslaugh with the poster, until Ki taps out.

"Get off me!" He pushes her away and they laugh it off, Ki pushing his hair up off his forehead, "I gotta go shower. I smell like barbeque."

"Which reminds me, where'd you go with that boy?" She puts her hands up, "All sex jokes aside."

"He's my friend. I took him to the Korean restaurant place down on the other end of the highstreet since the chippy place we originally planned to go to was shut down."

"You spent so much time dawdling about you could have introduced him to eomma."

"He'd forgotten where he'd parked his car and we were just joking about it. And I don't need to introduce him, no need. I told him his best bet to finding his car was back down the highstreet near the chippy."

"Mhhm, except he was lying."

"What?"

"He parked his car in the private residential lot around the corner. And got a ticket for it, I saw. But y'know, it was nice of him to do all that just walk you up here. You can look outside if you want, he might be gone by now though."

"You're lying. He didn't even know we were going to the Korean restaurant place."

"The chippy, the restaurant and this bakery are on the same highstreet, hyung. He was still able to pull it off and you were a dumbass for not noticing."

"Noticing what?"

Misumi stands up to leave.

"Misi.."

"You met that boy what, two-three months ago? You already seem pretty close, especially since you took him to the restaurant."

"That boy is Issa, I know you know his name. And he's a nice person. Pretty funny too. He's my friend and honestly I really need them in these times, y'know. The hell you trying to imply?"

She purses her lips together, considering her options. For once, Ki wants his sister to talk.

"I'm going to go help downstairs."

She shuts the door and Ki stands to go look out the window. She's right. If Issa's car was ever just parked around the corner, there's no car there in the residential lot to prove whether she's lying or not. Or if there was any other reason for Issa to walk him up to the flat other than his supposed parked car up this end. He thinks about what Misumi said, about Issa getting a parking ticket from parking his car where it wasn't supposed to be.

He smiles to himself and lulls in his thoughts back the text messages, the fingerguns and Issa's glance lingering on him.

I bet he didn't even realise I noticed. Dumbass. Like what Misi said I was for not noticing...

Oh.

Oh.