“If only you knew the extent of what I’m going through…” Valdas shuffles his feet towards the door, shifting his gait every five steps, Ke’tlan following closely behind. The blond looks back and waves farewell to the barkeep sweeping the floor, who waves back with a smile on her face.

The two patrons walk alongside each other to the parking lot, where two vehicles sit: a grey SUV with large, bulky lights, and a much more compact, solid black motorbike. Ke’tlan presses the unlock button to try to find which vehicle is Valdas’, only to feel somewhat surprised that it was the bike’s rear lights that illuminated. He looks down at the man who is now leaning against his lithe frame, eyebrows raised. “Do you really ride this back and forth from work?”

Valdas chuckles softly before giving a stern, “Yes. Since all of my work is digital I don’t need to lug around anything heavy, so why not? It gets me to where I gotta go…” He pauses in thought. “You do know how to ride a bike, right?”

“Thankfully…” Ke’tlan pauses. “I can say yes to that question. Not something one would expect from a businessman, though.” He sits down on the bike, removing his heels and putting them in his clutch before taking out a pair of flat, black penny loafers. “I am glad I keep a pair of these around just in case. Now, how do I get to your place from here?”

“If you don’t mind going down the highway,” Valdas unlocks the helmet from the side of his bike, “go down this street, take a right at the big intersection, get on the highway when you see the option to, and take Exit 37 when you see it.” He places the helmet on Ke’tlan’s head, then pockets his glasses. “If you don’t want to take it, my helmet doubles as a headset. Connect your phone to it and tell GPS to go to Delacroix Estates.”

Ke’tlan straddles the bike, tucking the clutch in between the shirt belt and pant line. “And taking the highway, do I keep going straight after the exit or is there more turning after that?”

Valdas’ arms wrap around Ke’tlan’s midriff, giving him a startle, and when he feels the businessman’s face pressed against the middle of his back, his face starts to flush. “Hmmm, just a single one,” Valdas responds. “Turn left at the gas station with the wings. After the wings you’ll see a gated community to your… left, right? Either way, go through the gate. Passcode 6143. Left, right, then straight, second entryway on your left.”

Ke’tlan takes a deep breath, then turns on the bike. “Big right, 37, left wing, gate turn, 6143, left, right, second on left, got it.” It takes a few revs to get used to the vibrations and general feeling of the vehicle, but in no time at all the two of them hit the road.

The traffic density of this area is light compared to the cities and towns that Ke’tlan normally visits, and tonight, the light cycles are more than generous. When they get on the highway, Valdas starts to get a bit talkative. “What are you doing visiting these parts?” he yells, trying to fight the wind resistance so he can be heard.

It takes a bit for him to process, but Ke’tlan responds: “I just like to sight-see. I am a wayfarer, I guess you would say? I go where my wings take me. They know me better than I do. I visit a location for a week, then I jump to the next one. It makes me feel free.”

“Wings, huh? Guess that explains the tattoos.” There is a long silence shared between them, the hums of vehicles that pass them by filling the dead air every so often. Valdas speaks up again. “Have you ever stayed in one place for longer than a week, or does the magic wear off soon after? I don’t know how long you’ve been doing this, but there has to be a place where you thought, ‘I could live here forever,’ at least once.”

“Maybe once,” Ke’tlan answers. “I have been doing this for 11 years, and only once have I felt that feeling. Unfortunately, that feeling did eventually come to fade. I lived in that place for almost eighteen months, before I had to leave it behind.”

“Why couldn’t you stay?”

More silence. Valdas presses his ear against Ke’tlan’s warm back. He listened to the blood flow throughout his veins, his thrumming heartbeat, and the deep breaths that came in and out of his lungs. It was a feeling one could equate to being encased in the womb: a warm, gentle comfort, a feeling of protection from anything that could come to harm them.

The silence went on for several minutes, as Ke’tlan focused on the road ahead of him, and Valdas became entranced by the sound of Ke’tlan’s body working through the motions. Finally, Ke’tlan gave some semblance of an answer: “Love. Maybe the absence of it. It just stopped feeling like home, that is all.”

“What is the case with you, though?” Valdas is asked. “You are suit-and-tie but look miserable. What work do you do that saddens you so?”

“I work for a social media platform, mid-tier management. The work isn’t the saddening part, it’s the fact that I cannot escape it.” The motorbike starts to slow as Ke’tlan takes a turn down the proper exit. “Social media is integrated in almost everything, from banking to communications. I can’t brush my teeth without thinking about what family or friends have posted on Palaver, and I can’t check my messages without worrying that one of them is going to talk about my job with me. This interconnectivity is great, you know, but sometimes it feels like I can’t turn any of that off because I work in social media. It seems as though people expect me to be social just because I work in it.”

Ke’tlan nods. “That is understandable. If it means anything to you, I have never even heard of Palaver. Is that where you work?”

“Yeah, Palaver Media Group,” Valdas straightens his back a bit. “‘Where you can chatter with anyone that you like.’ It used to function like a tradesman’s forum-- invite-only-- but then the traders gave their family invite codes, and codes became obsolete soon after that. Fast forward 10 years, and now it’s a social media conglomerate. You wouldn’t think that a glorified bulletin board would turn into what it’s become. Hell, there hardly is a direct marketplace function anymore. Palaver is just a shell of what it used to be.”

“That heavy, huh?” Ke’tlan comes to a red light, and on the corner is the gas station Valdas had mentioned: above the gas prices shone a pair of bright-red wings with a yellow backdrop. Underneath the logo in red read the word Kim’s, which to many was just a word, but to Ke’tlan it seemed to mean far, far more. “Kim…”

“Yeah, odd name huh?” Valdas exclaims. “I understand naming a business after yourself, but it sounds odd if your business is gasoline distribution.” Ke’tlan tilts his head down in thought. “I don’t know the person who owns the business, but maybe I can find them and ask them about the name. Hell, it might not be the founder’s name.”

“Yeah,” Ke’tlan mumbles, then takes a left turn with the light change. After the turn, they kept catching red light after red light. The remainder of the bike ride was dead silent, aside from the occasional drunkards shouting obscenities at whatever-- and whoever-- strikes their fancy.

Sooner or later, Ke’tlan gains vision of the black, solid gates surrounding many acres of land and a large, white rectangular building sitting in the center of it all. There are smaller, narrower boxes scattered about, and a designated area for what seems to be a pool and outdoor gym, but the designs of the buildings are all identical: white boxes with black-framed windows and a flat roof with black fences tracing the perimeter of its edge.

Ke’tlan pulled up to the passcode box and inputted the numbers ‘6143’. The box chimed and the gates opened. Driving through the complex, he was better able to see smaller details. Some of the windows had balconies, and those that did were usually dictated to the shorter side of the buildings. The pool and outdoor gym were, in fact, a pool and outdoor gym, but the gym looked more accommodating to children rather than adults. As there were groups of adults climbing on the playsets, no one likely cared about the target audience of their amenities.

As the roadway splits, Ke’tlan makes the appropriate turns: one left at the start, then one right-- which, to be fair, was the only other option to go, rather than straight. As they approach the second arc to the left, Ke’tlan slows, and Valdas sits up, stretching. “Home sweet home,” Valdas yawns, helping Ke’tlan out of the helmet as the bike comes to a stop. Valdas stands up, a little wobbly on the feet, and takes the keys out of the ignition, locking the helmet to the side of the bike as it once was.

Ke’tlan stands up and is immediately leaned against. “Fifth floor please,” he mumbles, Valdas’ height now stopping at Ke’tlan’s chin. The taller blond looks down at the exhausted businessman, questioning whether to carry him or not.

They opted for the latter and finally made it up the stairs, Valdas with an arm over Ke’tlan’s shoulder. Ke’tlan’s questioning on where the apartment is becomes silenced when Valdas starts to walk independently of him, down the far end of the right hallway and to the left door. He fumbles a bit with the keys, but eventually unlocks the door. “You can spend the night, if you’d like,” he tells Ke’tlan. “I can drive you back home before work.”

He opens the door and guides Ke’tlan to go inside first. Apprehensive at first, he obliges, stepping inside and trying to feel his way around the front entrance. Valdas pushes his way in and shuts the door behind the both of them, locking it before turning the light on. As he flicks on the switch, the studio apartment the businessman lives in is revealed.

To the left is the closet that holds all of his suits, pants, and polished shoes, and to the direct right is what one could assume is the bathroom. Further in, there is a little kitchenette around the corner, and a television set up on the left wall. At first glance, there appears to be a couch underneath it, but upon further observation there are drawers underneath it, likely housing a computer or gaming console and the requisite accessories. To the left of it is a folded table propped up against the wall, and across from it is a futon bed, currently resting in a couch position. There is a sliding glass door in the very back of the room, which has an unobstructed view of the moon and not much else.

Valdas kicks off his shoes at the doorway and pulls off his jacket, dropping it on top of the stack of shoes in the closet. “You can sleep on the couch or my bed, I don’t mind either,” he yawns, shuffling to his bed and falling into it. Ke’tlan stares at the mess of a man in front of him, who near-immediately passes out face-down onto the bed. Whether it was an illusion of choice or him suggesting that he could lie with him if he wanted, Ke’tlan nevertheless smiled. He grabs a blanket from the corner of the room and drapes it over Valdas’ sleeping body.

Ke’tlan plants a soft kiss on Valdas’ forehead, and makes his way to the balcony. He closes the glass door behind him, and walks toward the railing drapes his arms over it. Sighing, he looks around him. Aside from the stars in the night sky and the moon as his witnesses, there was no one around him. Looking back into the apartment to Valdas sleeping soundly, he pulls off his shoes and tucks them in behind his sweater’s belt.

He climbs on top of the railing. The wind starts to pick up around him, the metal underneath his feet feeling rough and cold. Ke’tlan’s balance on the bar is inhuman as he pulls out his hair tie with a swift tug, the golden strands cascading yet again down his back. The cool wind fingers through his hair as he takes in a deep, steady breath.

Wearing the tie like a bracelet around his wrist, he takes a second glance behind him before taking a leap of faith from the balcony, arms wide open, and large, feathery wings unfurl from the tattoo on his back; the feathered membrane catches the wind, causing him to rise back up again and fly where the moonlight guides him.