It was good to be home, but damn Run was tired after spending a couple of days with his family. His moms somehow managed to bustle and hover more than they had when he was little and all he could do was say, “Mom, Mia, I’m fine. Just sit down,” every few minutes without it making the slightest difference whatsoever.
The house he’d spent most of his life in felt like home and not home. Even though his moms had described every change in detail over the years it was hard to reconcile the place he remembered, with its faded wallpaper and endless list of improvement projects that Mia added to but never completed, with this neatly painted stranger. The dining room table he remembered was still there, heavy and old, big enough to fit ten people, but the top had been refinished so its finish was glossy and warm, the scratches and paint marks and fork gouges preserved under a thin layer of lacquer. All the chairs matched. The walls still held three decades of artwork from every foster kid that had passed through and been compelled to leave a drawing behind, but they were framed now. The photo from the day he Mia and Mom adopted him had been blown up and hung in the living room next a similar picture of the day Dev’s adoption was finalized.
He touched both pictures and found himself overwhelmed by little memories, a sensation that he hadn’t experienced in years.
“How come you started calling Kate mom, even though I’m your favorite, huh?”
Run stared at her for a minute and said, “Because Mia already means ‘mom’ to me.”
“You—“ Mia wiped her eyes aggressively with the cuff of her sleeve. “You fuckin’ kid.” She hugged him a long time before leaving that day.
Run’s little brother, Dev, was too busy trying to keep his two year old occupied. Lucas was an enthusiastic danger to himself–he seemed to careen directly towards a coffee table corner every few minutes, not to mention flinging himself at PomPom, Mia’s ancient, grey long haired cat. PomPom seemed unmoved by the commotion and Run, only familiar with the cat’s behavior a decade before, wondered if it would just be a few moments more before Lucas really regretted trying to “pet kitty.” Run still had a few very thin scars from PomPom who was legendarily ill-tempered with everyone but Mia.
By the time he made it home to the apartment he was loaded up with cookware he was certain he didn’t need, a grocery bagful of instant noodles that he did want, two packages of socks, even more underwear, t-shirts, a couple pairs of jeans, another plant, and some random pantry items. In exchange, he had promised to come back the next weekend.
“You’ll have seen me all week at work, won’t you? It’ll get annoying to have me here all the time,” Run said, leaning into Mia and laying his head on her shoulder. The biggest adjustment for him now was being used to being allowed to touch people. No timed hugs. No admonitions to, “Mind your fucking space, boys,” from the COs. He’d had a cellmate his first year who was as outwardly panicked as Run was calm. Sometimes they would hold hands in the middle of the night, one long arm hanging over the edge of the uncomfortable, narrow bunk, and one reaching up. They never talked about it, it was just some sort of lonely phenomena and if they’d called attention to it who knows if it would ever happen again.
“We’ll never be annoyed with seeing you, kid,” Mia promised and added an open bottle of Ibuprofen to his grocery bags. “Hey, let us know if you need rides anywhere or help with anything, okay? We’re your moms, we want to make sure you’ve got what you need.”
In the end, it was a done deal and included orders to bring his roommate to dinner sometime. “I haven’t even met them in person yet, Mom.” He took note of the look on her face and said, “Okay, okay, I will. I’m going now, I’ll call soon. Love you.”
Truthfully, Run wasn’t worried about not getting along with a roommate. He’d had so many different cellmates over the years that he was pretty skilled at managing close quarters living arrangements with strangers, even those who were fairly volatile. He had been close with a very few people and only encountered two or three that were just impossible to get along with.
It seemed unlikely that Neko would fall into the latter, but if they did, he could leave. It was an unusual thing for Run–this option to choose location and company.
“Holy shit, we’re finally meeting!” Neko entered the apartment laden with shopping bags, a duffel bag, and a backpack and they started handing things off to Run without taking a breath or skipping a word. “Oh my god my mom always sends so much stuff back with me. Do your parents do that? Jesus, I think she has no idea that I’m a reasonably capable adult.”
Neko was tall, just shy of six feet like Run, with wide shoulders and as much as Run tended to blend silently into the background, Neko demanded full attention, starting with the bright red lipstick staining their lips. Their dark hair was a little long and somewhat messily pulled into a knot and they wore the brightest abstract floral sweatsuit—the flowers were neon red, like begonia blossoms—that Run had ever seen, but it made sense with their oversized gold and green sunglasses. Despite their few interactions–some texting and a couple of phone calls, he didn’t feel surprised by the entrance or the riot of color, and the steady stream of questions and shared internal monologue already felt a bit familiar.
“We now have cookware no one needed, so yes, my moms definitely do that,” Run answered and stepped forward with his hands out, ready to relieve his new roommate of their bags of parental affection.
“Are you hungry? I am absolutely starving. If I cook, will you eat? Oh, you already said yes!” Once one hand and arm were free, Neko tossed the sunglasses on the counter and gave Run a wide smile featuring two front teeth that were ever so slightly gapped then asked, “Are you a hugger? I’m hugger, and if you aren’t that’s totally fine and I will not be offended at all.”
“No, I’m a hugger. I mean, I was. You can’t really be a hugger in, you know, prison.” While not generally prone to embarrassment, Run wished he had just stopped with his first sentence.”
“Oh my god, right, I didn’t think of that, which means you are probably super touch starved and like I am happy to hug you literally anytime.” Neko pulled Run into a firm embrace, that for all implied strength in the pull itself was utterly lacking in aggression.
Run had no compulsion to pull away–it would seem that ‘touch starved’ was an apt description.
Giving him one last squeeze, Neko let go and stepped back. “How was that?”
“Really nice,” Run admitted.
“Good. Okay!” Neko shucked their shoes off, kicking them back towards the door and letting out a long sigh. “Now we need food.”
“I could still eat.”
“Awesome, give me a hand? Would you put everything in this bag in the pantry, and hand me the cutting board? Also, we should talk about apartment stuff, too. I don’t have a lot of people over, but I do have a couple of close friends who hang out pretty regularly. You’re always welcome to join, by the way.”
“Thanks, at most my moms might stop by, or my brother and his kid, but probably not much.”
They made quick work of it and before he knew it everything was put away, he had divulged more personal information about himself in minutes than he had in years.
“Any food allergies or things you don’t care for?”
“No, I’m open to most foods. I’m not very picky.”
“So you’re twenty-seven, you’ve only got a year of parole to deal with, your job is lined up, you have eight years worth of socks that are just a little too small; what’s next for you? Anything you’ve been really looking forward to doing?”
“Mhm. I’ve already done what I was looking forward to. I’ve hugged my family, gone for runs without having to stay on a track, and I’m not sharing a metal bunk bed anymore.”
“That’s it? Nothing else?” Neko maintained their conversation seamlessly while crushing garlic cloves under a large knife. “Also, do you like spicy food?”
“Not really. I’m pretty boring, with boring aspirations.” Run was smiling when he answered. In truth, his compulsions in general were rare. Not much had moved him over the last decade. “And spicy is fine with me.”
“Well, if you’re open to suggestions, I am occasionally not boring, and I am happy to help.” Neko made quick work of an onion and a few small green peppers and asked, “Vegan? Vegetarian?”
“No, I really will eat just about anything.”
Neko moved on to chopping up chicken thighs somewhat aggressively and while they were briefly not speaking, Run took the opportunity to observe them more closely. They had soft-looking brown skin, long, narrow brown eyes, thick but neat eyebrows, and deep dimples when they smiled. He knew all of this from the selfies they exchanged, but it wasn’t the same. What an interesting person, Run thought and handed them the salt when asked. He was relieved by the campionable feeling he’d had since the moment Neko walked into the apartment.
God it might be nice to have a friend, he thought, the odd dip of longing in his stomach caught him off guard. He turned away from the feeling and re-focused on Neko who was humming something he didn’t recognize and checking to see if the oil in their wok was hot enough. He didn’t have any trouble giving them his full attention while they cooked; Neko moved quickly and competently without missing a single conversational beat.
While eating, Run sat at the small formica table across from Neko, comfortably listening to them tell him about their family (single mom, no siblings), work (various clubs and cam work), recent playlists, and thoughts about playing video games on easy mode.
“I just think that video games are supposed to be fun, right? And why do I care about beating one on hard mode if I didn’t even enjoy it? Oh my god, when’s the last time you played video games? Do you want to?” Neko leaned in over the table and gestured at Run with their fork, “You should totally junk out with me, okay, I haven’t had time to play anything in ages.”
Run smiled, again more than he probably had in a long time and said, “I last played yesterday, with my brother, and it was pretty terrible. But I’m down to play a bit. You might get frustrated with me, though.”
“Nah, it’s not that deep, it’s just some games, nothing to get shitty over. What kind of games do you think you want to play?” Seemingly always in motion, Neko cleared their plates before Run could object or offer to do it himself. “Don’t worry, you can do the dishes,” they laughed.
“I don’t know, why don’t you pick? I’m not really sure what I’ll like.”
“Alright, I’ll be in charge, which is sort of my thing.” Neko grinned and waved a slender vape pen in the air. “Weed,” they said while gesturing, “so I’m going to step out on the balcony for a few, back shortly.”
Outside Neko inhaled, exhaled, and observed Run through the sliding glass door. He did the dishes, wiped the table down and then sat on the couch, all without glancing in their direction. He didn’t appear to be the least bit self conscious. When he was done, he went and sat on the couch, posture loose without slouching, and Neko thought they had never seen a person sit so still. It wasn’t necessarily serene, or even calm. It really was just… stillness. They wondered how long Run would sit like that if they didn’t go back in.
Lena, who was close to Neko’s mom, only suggested queer folks they knew would get along well with Neko and would be safe to live with as roommates. Usually they were other sex workers with misdemeanor charges, or the occasional parolee mostly impacted by wrong place, wrong time. With rare exception, they moved on within a few months, some went back to jail or prison. None of them had been in for as long as Run.
He doesn’t look like he’s done that much time, Neko thought.
“Run’s kind of special,” Lena had explained. “He’s gay and helped out with a support group for queer prisoners for quite a few years. Also he’s very calm, very mild. I heard that a lot of the guys called him ‘Little Monk’ because he just doesn’t get riled up. There were a couple of times in the early days that he got the shit kicked out of him, but he didn’t fight back, didn’t hold a grudge.”
“I mean, that could mean he’s got a fuckton of anger he’s been holding in for too long,” Neko had responded.
“I know why you’d think that, if it were anyone else I would maybe agree. But he’s just like that. He goes to therapy every week, he’s stable, he has a job lined up. I know he’s close to his family, but he’s never been on his own, so I don’t know what that will be like, but I suspect it will be fine. I don’t want to overshare the details of why he went to prison, but I can say you really don’t need to be worried. And I think he would benefit from some community.” Lena worried at her ponytail while she talked, sometimes chewing on the end, which was a bit adorable. She reminded Neko of nervous rabbit: cute, yes, and a bit nervous all the time.
“Alright, seems like you think well enough of this dude–we’ll give it a go.”
For longer than they had planned on, Neko sat on the folding chair outside, a little stoned, and watched their roommate sit statue still. “I bet that motherfucker can really meditate,” they grumbled and went back inside to introduce Run to Ultimate Glitter Racing 3.
Neko: Unleash me already!
Author: Soon, I promise, SOON!
Neko: …
UPDATED 3/4/22 +400 words