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There were many things in life she was not accustomed to—having been cleared of all criminal charges, suddenly many of those things she had never experienced before were rapidly being introduced to her life one after the other.
No longer being on the run in some capacity, being allowed to be an every day (well almost) citizen, with an every day (definitely not) job, and an every day (unfortunately yes) salary were all freedoms that so many took for granted, and yet as the realization of what this meant for her and her new little family dawned on her, she felt… giddy. Overwhelmed.
Eager to get started.
The first thing Kimiko and Frenchie did together was spend an entire 24 hours exploring New York, finding music any and everywhere, and danced. They did not rest—perhaps they should have, and perhaps when she was not looking, he found a bench to take a breather and just watch while she twirled and twisted and invented all new movements she’d never done before just for the joy of it, and perhaps that kind of rest, just watching her be was better than any sleep ever could be—but she did not stop once. They took a ferry to Ellis Island, took it back just because being on the water seemed so fun, did every touristy thing, and every secret thing, they possibly could, finally stopping in a park that Frenchie casually described as “much better than Central Park”, and she was determined to go to every one now and see for herself whether that was true. But that would be tomorrow. Or another tomorrow.
It didn’t occur to her to watch the clock at all, but it was 8 am the next morning, as they stopped in this better park, and finally, though he tried his best to hold out, Frenchie had fallen asleep on a bench.
She took him home, and realized that they should probably find a new place to call home.
He was only minutely ahead of her on that one.
He awoke while she was sleeping, and when she woke up next, he provided a plan—“only if you want though. I don’t want to… overstep.”
An apartment—“For you, mon—Kimiko”—the money they’d be making on Mallory’s new team wasn’t a lot (hardly as much as she could make continuing to do jobs for Cherie, but she kept that thought to herself), but it was enough for a comfortable, not too shabby one bedroom with a balcony. He had others open on his laptop, just to have options, he insisted, but he also handed it over to her in case she wanted to look herself.
He didn’t say anything, but it became clear this was a space of her own he was offering. “I’ll leave you alone.” He had said not too long ago. They had not talked about that much since. Too much was happening, and while she’d begun to teach him her language, and perhaps they could understand one another better, there were some feelings she herself was having trouble deciphering in her own heart.
They were making some progress on his lessons, but she wondered if he’d understand the unspoken when she signed, “What about you? Where will you go?”
Frenchie looked at her, his face was always so open, soft, and expressive with her, but now he almost looked shy. He shrugged, and tried to laugh, “Oh, no, don’t worry about me. I always figure something out.”
She nodded. He did. But that wasn’t what she asked. She grabbed his arm to get his attention, and signed the question again.
He sighed, “I don’t know. I wanted to make sure that you were settled first Ah… That’s probably… overstepping again, non?”
She rolled her eyes, and scrunched up her face in a frown, looking to the computer. The one apartment with the balcony looked back at her. The picture next to it showed the outside of the whole building—it was fairly big, not fancy, mostly nondescript, but not old like many of the buildings around them. It looked built for quantity, not quality, like many people lived there.
Her heart leapt as she turned to him again, grabbing his arm, pointing at the apartment. He laughed, and smiled, but before he could say anything, she signed a word at him, and his face fell in confusion.
It was hard to remember to explain when she’d shared this language with someone who had so easily understood her before—her brother could guess the meanings of new words as she was developing signs for them. They just knew how the other thought. But that was not fair to Frenchie—he too understood her on a level that didn’t seem possible. He could feel and see her pains and joys and thoughts before she could put words to them herself. But they were still getting to know one another… It was okay that they could understand one another, but not quite read each other’s minds.
She paused, breathing in to calm her excitement, and did the sign again. She made her hands into a box shape, and then moved the box in a line. She then pointed to the various windows on the building, and the apartment, hoping that that was clear…
It was silly how much it meant to her that he would frown so seriously, think so deeply about her and her gestures, her words, and even if he did not guess correctly on the first try, he would not quit. He never quit on her. He glanced at her, letting the word fall off his tongue and land in a question, apprehensive, but just a touch hopeful, “Neighbors?” He copied the gesture. “This means neighbors?”
She beamed, and nodded. She signed her question, just as he was coming to realize what she was going to ask—he was already staring at her hands, his face a sad kind of awe. “Do you want to be neighbors?”
He looked at her, his smile large and his eyes shining, and signed back, “Yes, I would like that. Let’s be neighbors.”
It was a good compromise, she thought. It hopefully would communicate more accurately than she could articulate herself her objections and feelings towards “ I’ll leave you alone.” She did not want to be alone. But on the other hand, she had never been on her own before. She had been the only one to defend herself and her brother. She had been lonely. But there were always others around her, keeping her, keeping track of her, watching her. She had never experienced not having to answer to others, only being beholden to herself. And while she did not want Frenchie to completely leave her alone, there was something thrilling to the idea of having her own little slice of the world to herself.
So, they became neighbors. The building was new enough to not have many tenants, but old enough to not yet have a reason to make rent unreasonable. They picked two apartments across from one another, on the corner, so they didn’t have to worry about others, and could come and go as they pleased. While the top most floors were often more expensive, here, where the ‘elevator’ was perpetually out of order because the building manager had yet to actually get it installed, the top fifth floor was cheap, and beautiful, and all theirs.
She had a world all her own now. A blank, small, cramped space, with one, tiny little iron balcony—but the light of the sun shone in through every window. She barely needed lamps. After so long underground, this felt like living on a cloud. The walls were bare, a little cracked and stained here and there, but they were hers. And she could do whatever she wanted with this space.
The first thing she did, before furniture, before a bed frame, before anything, was take a large paint pen, and draw.
The wall directly by the balcony, with the most light hitting it, was first. In large, bold, scratchy letters, the best she could do in a new language, and as stylistic as she could in her old, she wrote “BOSSY” in black and red and yellow ink, surrounded by a spiky cartoon balloon of kinetic energy. The Japanese was written twice, on the bottom and the top, playing into the kinetic lettering, her writing there just a bit more confident, a bit more playful. She had stars shoot out from the word, dancing along the lines of light that appeared with the sunset. She decorated the top with big polka dots just because. And the floor molding, she covered in small pictures of angular, square mice, every color in the rainbow.
The wall was still not covered though, but she decided something then—the spaces still left on this wall would be left blank. Let inspiration come.
When Frenchie arrived with a delivery of furniture for both apartments, he was very impressed that she had been out finding decor of her own to add to her drawings. Spaces throughout the apartment now were covered in stickers, bought, or rescued from random corners, signs, nooks and crannies throughout New York--the kitchen especially, cabinets, drawers, the backsplash, and the fridge unrecognizable in its abundance of stickery. There were the typical dollar store stickers, half assed emojis stuck on paper, or funny cat faces, and cute little hearts and flowers--these made up the empty spaces in between larger, more dynamic stickers of bands, political slogans (FUCK SUPES being a particularly popular one throughout the apartment), stickers from local artists, their goods sold on street corners or bookstores or comic shops--there were tourist stickers, something halfway between a postcard and a magnet, stuck every where that needed big, broad space filled up, of the Empire State Building, of the city lights, of Central Park, of Yachts flowing down the Hudson, of Punk Bands sticking their tongues out at the camera, their leather and mohawks rainbow for pride. In the spots where stickers were not enough, she’d found posters from the street, anything colorful, bright, and neon vibrant that caught her eye, and nailed them into the walls, to be sure they didn’t come down. Amidst band posters of laughing skulls, soulful angry women pointing at the sky, or high fashion JPop boys pouting, there was a lone poster, a lost kitten, its pink color the only color really noticeable in the picture’s faded image anymore. All the rest of this delighted and thrilled him, but that broke his heart. He suspected that it must have broken hers too.
She stood in this space, no longer blank and temporary feeling, and it looked like she belonged, here among the collection of lost and forgotten things that were beautiful and loved, but lost all the same. Kimiko smiled at him, breathing easy, and looking strangely peaceful.
Frenchie was just so happy to have helped her find home.
His taste in furniture was somehow both elaborate and boringly, uncomfortably functional. The elaboration came in the odds and ends, the rare find abandoned (or stolen) from a corner, or left behind by the old owners. He didn’t know much about fine things, but appreciated them when they came about. But he wasn’t about to go out and get them himself. This is where the boringly functional came in. He supplied them with filing cabinets for storage, a couple pieces abandoned outdoor furniture it looked like it belonged to a public pool with just a little of the stuffing falling out, mattresses no frames, loose fabrics for blankets and curtains or something, and some thick wire mess for shelving that came apart far too easily--he offered to weld them, and she frowned, looking about the assortment.
“We have money now,” she signed, shrugging. “We could… Buy stuff.”
He deflated, and she felt bad, but also couldn’t help but laugh. “What is wrong with this?” He didn’t sign, he seemed too dedicated to gesturing about his collection, pulling out something that looked like a unicycle, with maybe a bagpipe attached. “Look! Decor!”
“What is it?” she bit her lips to hide the blossoming smile, but she didn’t succeed as he glared at the thing, turning it this way and that.
He stammered, “Decor? A… Statue? Or… Something. People have these things, I think. It’s a… It adds character!”
She moved away, and pulled out a magazine, one she had grabbed from her decoration collecting spree, and handed it to him.
His face scrunched up immediately in abject horror. “Non, it has not come to that. There are… Yard sales, we can go to! These things, it takes time! Not to mention, I got both mattresses up five stories, I think we have earned ourselves a break--come, I will cook!”
“With what?” she signed, once again shoving the magazine in his hand. “We don’t have cooking stuff. We don’t have anything. We need stuff.”
“Kimiko,” he begged. “Mon coeur,” he purred. “Do not make me go to that Swiss hell.”
“It’s Swedish, actually,” Hughie said, when Frenchie repeated his groaning complaint to them the next day. Annie and Hughie offered to help on their little Ikea adventure. Kimiko wasn’t necessarily excited, the suburban offerings of this place were attractive to her not because of the style, but mostly it was a step up in cheapness from literally off the street. Plus, two supes with super strength would make the whole process of carrying everything up five stories much easier. So no, while she wasn’t really excited by Ikea, the process of picking things out, with her friends, and the misery that poor Frenchie suffered under the bright fluorescent lights of mass appeal was at least a little bit fun, and a little bit new.
“Why if it is Swedish does none of it look good, non? Why, Hughie? There is no soul, no purpose, no spirit in this place,” a greeter smiled at Frenchie, and he flinched. “We could have viking shit everywhere! Furs, flagons built out of ram horns, fucking… Beards and naked warriors, I dunno,” he sighed, as they stopped by the third or fourth white shelving unit, identical to all the other white shelving units. “I don’t even think these words are Swedish.”
“You know, it’s not perfect, but it's good starter stuff!” Annie offered to Kimiko, writing down the names of a chair and sofa that Kimiko was busy test bouncing on. “Great for a first apartment or dorm, you know. It doesn’t really last all that long, gets destroyed really easy,” she whispered this part, “Especially if you’re a supe, but… At least its easily replaceable! You know, you don’t wanna go breaking Nana’s heirloom vase, but the Muln? Who cares about the Muln!”
“So we are just waltzing right into the arms of fast fashion, corporate waste, contributing to the death null of the earth? This is okay with all of you?” Frenchie practically swooned into the dining set, a set of more silly sounds that Kimiko could read the letters too, but not quite make out the name of. It was cute though. Bright yellow, with wiry black legs. It could go nicely with that shelving unit he had still insisted on welding together. Maybe she could paint things on it as well, something in bright red, or orange. She sat with him at the dining table, and showed the tag to Annie, who obliged.
“Real furniture costs… A lot,” Hughie grimaced, fiddling with a lamp that he was just about taller than. It was huge orb-like bulbs, hanging down in such a way that they almost swayed in the wind. Kimiko pointed at that too, and Hughie, noticing her, fumbled, but managed to catch his tiny pencil in time and write that down as well. “A lot of the stuff that was in my dad and mine’s place, that was old stuff passed down. Anything new, well. Garage sales are hard to get to by subway, and this shit gets delivered, you know?”
She half expected Frenchie to moan, and continue to bury himself in his sulking, but when she looked down to check on him, he was looking at her, his eyes gleaming with a hidden smile. She smirked, and signed quickly and under the table, for his eyes only, “You okay?”
His eyes darted down to see, and he grinned, and shot her a wink. She relaxed and knocked her knees against his in acknowledgement. “I suppose if you are not as lucky as me to know all the good places to find things that are just good enough,” he whined playfully. “Or not as lucky that all the stuff in my old apartment is at Cherie’s, and I’m just bringing it over slowly.”
Kimiko nodded smartly. “I’m getting new stuff,” she signed, and he sighed, defeated.
“Yes, you are getting new stuff. New, flimsy, wasteful stuff.” He pushed off of the table, and headed over, across a display (which only one worker complained at. The other with them simply shook their head as if to say ‘everyone does it, don’t worry’). She followed, leaving Hughie and Annie in their own little bubble, as they often found themselves in. She wondered briefly if that’s how she and Frenchie looked, always finding themselves within the other’s sphere. When she arrived at his side, he was looking at something, half shelf, half mirror, its red frame shaped like a heart. He was staring at it as if it were something in a museum, an artwork that required a great deal of thought and care into its interpretation.
“It’s cute, non?” he whispered, signing as well, “Do you like it?”
She stood back to take it in. The display it was in couldn’t seem to decide if it was some sort of hip, pop-inspired Manhattan apartment, or a little girl’s room--she couldn’t figure out what sort of person would be in the pink laced covers at night, or read at the oblong, black and pink desk, with shelves that had little devil horns on it, but it did make her laugh.
“It’s weird,” she signed. “I like it. I love it,” she laughed. She moved around the room, touching the things there, holding them up one at a time for him. The pink lace, she shook her head.
“I could have told you that,” he said, his eyes following her as she went. She wondered why he looked at her the same as the mirror, in almost every interaction, no matter where they were.
She pointed to the desk, and shrugged. She pointed to the horns, and gave a thumbs up, but the colors and its checker pattern, she waved away.
“We could paint it,” he signed, and she smiled.
“We could paint it,” she signed back.
He winked, and lo and behold, finally wrote down a number on his little Ikea card.
She stopped at the mirror, and smiled at it, taking it in again. It was… Cheesy, she thought the word was. It wasn’t quite juvenile, but it felt like it was maybe trying too hard. Like someone like that blonde singer, the American woman that Annie liked her old stuff, but Hughie liked her new stuff better. She pointed to the two of them, and then the mirror, and signed at Frenchie, “Who is the girl? Who sings that song about her list, and torture?”
That had him in a fit of giggles. “Ah, yes, the infamous Taylor Swift. This, it makes you think of her?”
She smiled while she nodded. “Annie says she’s very New York,” she signed.
Frenchie rolled his eyes. “Annie would say that. That is not the real New York. That is…,” he came close, and whispered with feigned disgust, “Very bourgeois. Tres bougie. No good.”
She smirked, pointed at herself, and the mirror, “Maybe I’m bougie?” She had to invent the sign, putting her fist to her mouth like a microphone, but with her pinkie popped out, and made an elaborate, pouting face to match.
He did not answer for a while. She almost thought to explain, but he whispered, reverently, “Is that a word that we invented? Together?”
She almost didn’t realize. But yes.
Yes it was.
The Mirror hung in the space under the large written “Bossy” on her wall. She placed her origami creatures, and all the little odds and ends she had begun collecting in her new life with the Boys there. The “Bossy” ring had a special place of honor, in a little red velvet box Frenchie had managed to scrounge out of his belongings as they came from his old apartment.
Their apartments were decorated quite differently, according to their different personalities, and tastes, and yet, there was a certain sameness you couldn’t help but notice, moving from one apartment across to the other. They felt like an extension of one another.
He was over often, and they cooked together, watched TV together, spent almost all their time together, but still, the cherished and sacred notion of finding herself and who she was alone was kept firm. Whenever one or the other felt the siren call of sleep, they said their good nights and parted ways.
The hardest night was the first, when they finally spent the night over at their new apartments, rather than the basement in Flatbush. Suddenly, the reality of this whole new world was upon her, like a fiend, sitting on her chest, paralyzing her, pinning her to her new dark purple sheets. New York was not a quiet city, but she had never slept alone before--alone in her bed, sure. Alone in her home? In the spaces she had known, there were always people, the sound of another’s breath was always just a wall away. In her village, there was her parents--her mother, poor woman, snored something awful. Kenji and her would laugh until they had exhausted themselves, and sleep overtook them. With the Shining Light Liberation Front, every body made its own squelches and whistles in the night, whether on purpose from those standing guard to keep themselves awake, or unconsciously, as they slept the quick, efficient, and restless sleep of soldiers trying to stay alive. The men that caged her chittered fearfully in their sleep, while she watched them. The Boys? Butcher probably snored worse than her mother, and M.M. had a tendency to talk in his sleep. Soft things, gentle things, nonsense things, but they always seemed spoken with affectionate somnambulism. Hughie tossed and turned fretfully, always. Frenchie? He had nightmares. But more often than not, if she were present, those pained cries that let loose in his slumber, eased away in her presence. She found that her own nightmares did too, as long as she could hear his shaky breaths.
She did not go over. She wanted to prove that she could do this. That alone was what she wanted. That this was a boundary she was claiming, and happy to claim, that it was not a mistake, and that she could discover who she was on her own. But rather than sleep, she paced the floor the whole night, drawing absentmindedly on the walls, replacing stickers in better suited positions, and channel jumped through every channel they had illegally required (they were absolutely not going to start paying for cable.)
Finally, at 5 am, a whole night of sleep not achieved, she picked up the new phone that Mallory’s new agency required her to have, and typed in Japanese, allowing the phone to translate for her.
new phone who is this
At 5:40, she received a response.
Kimiko? are you alright?
yes. could not sleep
She didn’t mean to track the clock, but it was all that there was to do. The digital clock she had gotten was a present from M.M. He said it was also a radio, pretty old school, you could hook up an iPod to it. Frenchie apparently had a couple after all this time.
5:59: me neither.
6:03: can i help? I have tea that helps with sleep.
She smiled.
6:03: i’m not sure if that is okay… i could put it out by your door, knock and go back, or try to slip it under, i don’t… i know your space is your space.
Her throat tightened and her eyes prickled with a sting that felt hugely overdramatic for the situation, so she laughed, and sniffed, and texted back.
just talk to me.
The temptation to just say it, to just let him come over, to let the pretense of so many pretenses be over was strong. Incredibly strong. Maybe if she let him kiss her, the thoughts of Kenji, of the camp, of that horrible nazi bitch, of Supes ruining everything, of her one day ruining everything, of his beautiful brown eyes and long lashes, and the variety of smiles she had seen, knowing that there were still so many more kinds of smiles Frenchie had hidden within him, and she wanted to see them all, what were they to each other, how can she define them, when she has yet to define or understand herself, what she wants, can she want anything, should she want anything--she breathed.
And pressed call.
His face appeared on her phone, blinking against the light of his device, but sleepily smiling up at her. She focused on his face, paled by the light of the phone, rather than note any peculiarity of how he was sleeping, such as his lack of sleepwear. That wasn’t important or notable at all.
“Are you okay, mon coeur?” he was trying, of late, to call her that less and less. She wished, in a little secret locked up place in her, that he wouldn’t stop. It was a nice thing to be called. Movies, of course, told her a little of what it meant. One day, she might ask him though. One day.
Tonight, she had a different question. She set up the phone against the wall she was laying besides, the one with the rainbow mice drawn on the molding. It was tough to sign perfectly laying down, but it was her language. It was meant to be expressed as she needed. She adjusted slightly, and asked, her gestures slow and shaking, despite herself, “What is your name?”
He turned from his back to his side, looking at the phone as if they were side by side. After a little while, not of awkwardness, or shyness, just sleeplessness, he managed to get the words out. “Serge.”
She spelled it out, mouthing it, and signing the letters, against her chest, like a whisper. He smiled, watching her. His eyes were shining, from the light of the phone, she did not know. But she liked it. She liked the way he looked at her.
Something warm and tingling suddenly overcame her, and sleeplessness could not at all be blamed, as her throat went dry. She almost feel her heart thumping in her mouth, and she pressed her lips together to stop it.
Starting and stopping, she signed back, “I’ll have to come up with a good sign for that.”
“Can I help?” he started, an instinct. Who was this man whose instinct first and foremost was to help? Some version of her may fall in love with such a man. She didn’t know yet, but she swallowed hard, and laughed when he covered his faced and groaned. “Merde, ah.” He signed the next part. Even in his sleep deprived state, he got most of the words right, “If you like, I would like to help. I like coming up with words with you. If you like.”
She nodded. She wasn’t sure he’d get this next part, but the honesty of early mornings took ahold of her. She just wanted to say it. “That’s part of it. That is the language. A relationship. Building and growing. We make it together. Before, it was just me and Kenji. It was our survival, our family. I never thought I’d get to share it with anyone else.”
She paused, and bit her lip. “Thank you for sharing it with me. For wanting to learn. For wanting to…”
She didn’t know what else to say. So she just smiled. She took the gesture for the words that she almost said. Build. Grow. Be together. Taking the delicate, swaying upward movement of grow, and placing a hand atop, and then closing it, she pointed at him.
“Serge?” she pointed at him, repeating the gesture. It was a question, a suggestion, to see if he liked it.
It took him a minute, but he whispered, “Could you show me again?”
She did, and he beamed, almost fully awake now.
“That is… Me? That’s my name? Serge?”
Again, it wasn’t that she felt embarrassed, maybe even shy was not the right word. She wasn’t apprehensive either, just… Nervous. Like she knew for certain that he could not be unhappy, that he would like whatever his name was in her words, but she just… She needed it to be perfect.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, repeating the gesture to himself, over and over, staring in wonder, first at his hands, and then those brown eyes gleamed at her with that same awe. “How do I say yours?”
She blinked. She hadn’t signed her name in a very long time. But her heart was hammering, gleeful that he was happy, and joyed that she had gotten it right. She repeated his sign again, just because.
And then she introduced herself. It was a small sign, one that she rarely used herself. Kenji had come up with it, like she had come up with his nickname Mouse, and built that into the full name Kenji. Hers was based on a nickname given to her long ago, by their grandparents. It was almost embarrassing to remember how they called her Little Lady of the House, Little Lordling, Little Boss, and all the variations thereof that really did come down to Bossy. But she showed him. That was part of all this. Letting him in. Building something with him. She drew a little sheriff star over her heart (that was the joke, come from toy costume things, and a crown had been too silly to try and sign), followed by a quick nod, and then pointed to herself. A childish thing. But that was what they came up with. They were children.
She quickly signed her explanations, “It was more a nickname. You can make it shorter, the nod, but it’s… Kenji was a mouse and I was…”
He wasn’t smirking, but he was clearly delighted, and trying not to laugh. She huffed at him.
“I’ve been trying to make a new sign, more… Grown up,” she signed, but he was copying the motions she had done, trying to memorize it. He did it under her watchful gaze, careful to make sure it was playful and not cruel. She laughed, to assure him. “It means…” she started, and he signed and spoke with her.
“Could it possibly mean Bossy?”
She glared, but there was no heat behind it. “Kenji made it up.”
“I like it,” he said and signed. “It’s… pretty fitting.” He laughed, and she did too. A breath later he added, “Perhaps in time, I will come up with my own sign for you though… if you like.”
You already have, she thought, and again her heartbeat faster. Instead, she nodded. “I’d like that. I’d like that very much.”
They spent the rest of the night talking, sleep forgotten, but so were all their fears that had kept them awake. Sleep did claim them eventually, but they were still on the phone with one another, soundly snoring in their separate apartments. At least until their alarms both went off (his, loud electric French rap, and hers, from the old digital clock M.M. set up, some old late 70s hip hop, bouncy and fun and a little bit old fashioned), and they remembered that it was in fact, also their first day at Mallory’s new agency.
They didn’t say it, but both of them thought of their Boys, and how M.M. or Butcher would have some crass comment about their sleepiness that morning. But Mallory and her crew accepted “Just finished our move,” readily enough. Only Mallory had a slight look for Frenchie.
It was a new life, a new adventure. And it was just getting started.