Chapter Text
MISCHA
The rollercoaster pulled to a halt. Five misbegotten teenagers stood in front of the pearly gates, waiting to enter. Each and every one of them felt as if there was a rat gnawing on their lungs, as if breath was a habit unimaginable to them. They had all done wrong at some point, after all, hadn’t everyone? But still, fear choked them.
The gates opened.
“Constance Blackwood,” a voice thundered, like lightning through their hearts, “Mischa Bachinsky. Noel Grueber. Ocean O’Conall Rosenberg. Ricky Potts. You may pass.”
Mischa stepped out of the roller coaster cart he had rode from Karnak’s purgatory. Absentmindedly, he took Noel’s hand to help his friend out of the cart. Once all five were out of the cart, they gazed in bewilderment at the towering gates in front of them. Truthfully, each one of them saw something different, but in essence it was all the same: the core of their spirit, what kept them going, the reason they wanted to keep living.
Mischa, jaw dropped like a codfish, realized he saw so many things in what appeared to be so simple. To his eyes, he saw golden bars soaring above his head, infinitely tall. But he felt the presence of everything he had considered good in the bars of the gates, he felt his mother’s smile, the comfort of his friends around him, he felt justice for Ukraine and all lost in Chernobyl. He felt the surety of love. He felt the poetry he never could write, but could always listen to, the poets that would fill his heart with warmth and completion. Dope.
The five stepped through the gates, hand in hand, Mischa on the far left. Bustling shops, towering buildings, small food stands and happy people filled what Mischa thought would have been a void. Skyscrapers that would have been a hunk of metal on earth had vines, flowers, and trees growing around them. Not a single person was yelling angry words. Birds sang, cicadas chirped, and Mischa felt pure bliss. Happiness.
A man with a bellhop’s attire, blue skin, and pearly white teeth seemed to materialize in front of the group. The creature turned its lips up in a surprisingly not-terrifying smile. “Hello, I am your Bellhop Corey. Is there anything you need?”
“Bellhop? Do we need to check—“ Ocean started to say. Noel interrupted.
“Where are we? Because if we left Karnak’s hell to enter another purgatory, I swear, I will—“
Mischa calmly slapped a hand over Noel’s mouth. Talking like that, Noel would get them all tossed out of heaven.
“I promise you, this is your permanent afterlife,” Corey assured. “There is no need to worry, although if you have any unaddressed affairs with any others residing in heaven, you are more than welcome to sort them out peacefully. You are here because you will not cause issues in this world, and since your future has been read, there is no changing that. You will stay.”
Mischa let out a sigh of relief and unclasped his hand from Noel’s mouth.
“In addition, ever since the dawn of time, there has been a house or apartment saved for each and every occupant of Heaven. It is made just for you, personalized to your likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams. I hope you don’t mind, but due to your time of death and personal preference in apartment buildings, all five of you are roomed in neighboring apartments.”
Noel groaned. “Even in death I can’t escape her! She’s followed me to the second afterlife. Well played, God, well played.”
Ocean scowled, but Mischa grinned at the repeated joke. It was becoming abundantly clear that those who were in Heaven didn’t need to be perfect, only pure of heart. Mad wicked awesome. If Noel was allowed to throw around insults, Mischa was more than allowed to carry a selfish hope in the back of his mind. He swallowed his fragile pride. “Excuse me, Corey, but would Ms. Tamara Bachinsky happen to be a resident of Heaven?”
Corey opened up a thick book, looking through his
spectacles and scrunching his nose. “It appears Ms. Tamara underestimated her length of life when she sent you away, Mischa. Still, she is not long for that world. Sadly, she will be arriving here soon.”
To Mischa’s guilt, he felt overwhelming joy for the thought of seeing his mother soon again. Of course, he was sad that his mother had sent him away to Canada only for him to be robbed of his mother in the last year and a half of his life, dying alone without any true family around him. Still, every cloud has a silver lining, and Mischa would soon reunite with his mother. Cool.
The bellhop gestured toward a building, a six floored apartment building with windows that had rollercoaster tracks flowing through them, walls in vibrant turquoises and pinks, carnival colors. Sick cotton candy hugged parts of the building, and popcorn dotted the ground around the building.
“Level up,” Ricky breathed, startling Mischa.
“Mad wicked awesome,” Mischa agreed, giving Ricky a pat on the back. The smaller boy smiled in appreciation.
“So… we just go inside?” Constance asked Ocean. The two had been glued to each other’s side ever since they left Karnak’s purgatory, whispering together in scared tones.
“I think so,” Ocean replied, like the whole thing was surreal. And it was. But Mischa had stopped being surprised by the time Ricky preached about being the Space Jesus of Cats. Really, there was nothing left that could shock him. He was already dead, anyway.
The five stepped inside, hand in hand. The first floor seemed to just be the elevator room to the other floors, each of which would house one of the Saint Cassian’s Chamber Choir members. From Mischa’s understanding, it went by alphabetical order of their first names, with Constance on the first floor and Ricky on the sixth. Mischa resided on the second floor. Dope.
They crowded into the elevator— no one quite enjoying the thought of using the rollercoaster up instead— and Constance pressed all of the buttons. This, Mischa realized, was likely the only time it would ever not be annoying to press all the buttons on an elevator. He had missed his chance.
Each button said the floor number and the initials of the occupant— Mischa was headed for 2MB. Chill.
ONE YEAR EARLIER
Mischa had moved to Uranium City a year ago. He had made a total of three almost friends— a friendly girl in Mischa’s homeroom, Constance Blackwood, who was willing to talk to almost anyone. She had low expectations, since her best friend was Ocean O’Conall Rosenberg. One girl who was mute, Savannah, would type out sentences in the search bars on school computers to talk to Mischa. And Noel, who Mischa had seen in class, and walking to Taco Bell. Eventually, after seeing him walking on the highway so often, Mischa offered to let Noel ride with him to the MegaMall where he worked at the movie theatre.
In truth, none of them were really his friends. Mischa suspected they only talked to him out of pity or fear. Or loneliness, in Savannah’s case. No one ever listened to her, or paid attention when she motioned to the computer. In truth, Savannah was pretty smart— she knew binary code and had a weird obsession with cats. She said she preferred to be called Ricky, Mischa wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was a middle name? Canadians were weird. Either way, it’s not like Mischa had real friends. Which is why it was such a surprise to see a friend request on Facebook by some girl named Talia.
In reality, she was not from Uranium City. The same girl had subscribed to him on YouTube— his Bad Egg account. She had left comments, most saying stuff like “Good song!” or “Nice beat” et cetera. All the comments were in Ukrainian— awesome, a nice shock for Mischa. Yet, the longer sentences were nonsense, for example, “This song was good very, but need more much emotion.”
Her profile picture on Facebook and YouTube was the same— braids forming a crown around her hair like Yulia Tymoshenko, a woman in a white dress, standing in a green field with trees around her. Her blurb on Facebook said, “Talia Muruska Bolinska— Kyiv— Let rivers run wild, or let them be dammed.”
Such a meaningful, poetic term. A poet, then. He accepted her friend request.
Almost immediately, he received a message from Talia— “Hello! I enjoy your music.” In Ukrainian.
“Thanks. You’re from Kyiv?” Mischa responded in the same language.
Talia: Yes. I live in city.
Her words were halting, incorrect, her grammar miserable.
Me: Did you ever go to school?
Mischa asked, confused at Talia’s lack of common sense. Sure, it may have been a little rude, but Mischa didn’t see the point of sugarcoating his words. He’d prefer to be blunt.
Talia: Yes. I get scholarship for good college.
Mischa furrowed his brow. He tapped on the email that was listed under Talia’s account profile— [email protected]. As far as he could tell, there was nothing linked to Talia’s email, except for her YouTube and her Facebook.
Mischa emailed Savannah.
[email protected]: Hey, Savannah, if I gave you a gmail address, could you track down a phone number?
[email protected]: My name is Ricky. I’m saving up the name Savannah to give away.
[email protected]: Oh, right, sorry Ricky. But could you?
[email protected]: Yes, I could. Send me the account name.
[email protected]: That's dope. Her account is [email protected]
Ricky stopped replying for a few minutes, then supplied Mischa with a phone number. He called the number, which rang three times before being picked up. “Hello?”
The voice was clearly not a girl’s, but Mischa decided to ask anyway. “Who is this?”
“Mischa? How’d you get my number?”
It was Noel Grueber, the one who worked at Taco Bell. “I, um, got it from your boss. I wanted to know if you needed a ride this week.”
“Uh, yeah, that’d be great! Thanks.”
Mischa hung up. Why was Noel trying to say he was a Ukrainian girl from Kyiv? There were two options: first, that Noel had a crush on him, which was unlikely. Second, that Noel was making fun of him, laughing at him. The more probable option of the two. As much as he would have loved for it to be the first option… he knew it would never be like that. Noel liked him because he hated Ocean and gave him free rides. That was likely the extent of their relationship.
Mad wicked awesome.
PRESENT
Mischa’s apartment was dope. There was a small kitchen, just enough to cook food, which really reflected Mischa’s hatred for the ‘culinary arts’. He had failed home ec. There was a fridge, stocked with fruit-punch pouches and reheatable frozen chicken nuggets. The food brought Mischa a surprising sense of nostalgia, it was the food he ate while in the basement of his adoptive family’s house. It should have brought back bad memories, but all it reminded him of was texting Talia late at night. He had a tan, cushy couch seated in front of a TV he could use to check in on living people.
Right out the window, Mischa could see Corey, who was constantly helping someone new find their apartment complex or locate a dead relative. Mischa thought it was sweet that someone was willing to dedicate their afterlife to helping others. Personally, if Mischa would do anything, he would want to write dreams, make wacky stories and send them off to someone’s brain while they rest. It wasn’t beneficial towards the world, but it would have been chill.
He heard a knock on his door— shockingly, he had a door. The elevator went into a hallway, which then led into his apartment, which was the entire floor. He wasn’t sure why it was built like this, other than plot convenience, but it made it so his neighbors had to knock before coming in, so he wasn’t mad. Mischa groaned and looked up from the book of French poetry he’d found on the counter. “Come in.”
Noel answered back, “It’s locked.”
Mischa reluctantly left his spot on the couch, setting his book down on the coffee table. “Yes, Noel?”
“I just wanted to drop by… it gets lonely when you’re dead.”
Mischa stared, expression blank. “I was rewatching Saw 5, so…” He wasn’t keen on telling Noel he was reading a book of poetry.
“I brought cookies.”
“By all means, come in.”
Noel left the plate of cookies on the counter and stood awkwardly until Mischa motioned for him to sit down on the cushy couch. Mischa sat at the opposite end, crossed his arms, and asked, in his most chill, cool, Bad Egg voice, “Sup?”
Noel burst out laughing. Mischa blushed, just a little bit, before Noel answered, “Don’t you think it’s a little unfair we died so young? We didn’t get a warning, a set time limit, we weren’t told we would die at 17. We just assumed we would live long lives, be happy, have our hopes and dreams fulfilled. Not that we would be MegaMall employees until we died. Which, really, is the real tragedy of this all.”
“We never lived in the moment because we assumed we didn’t have to,” Mischa summed up.
“Exactly. It’s like my whole life was some Fall Fair rollercoaster that sucked the whole way through, and I was told there would be happiness at the end of the ride, but the ride was cut short. Because I was thrown off the ride and killed.”
“You are a poet. You speak in, uh, analogies.”
“And what about you? You never got to… meet Talia, or know what would have happened if you met her. Because I stopped you from getting the answer from Karnak.”
“It’s fine, I think I have a pretty good idea of what would have happened, anyway.”
Noel would have laughed, and Mischa would have been embarrassed, even though he didn’t want to feel any emotion for someone like Noel anyway. Someone who lied on the internet to make fun of the new kid.
“You do? What do you think would have happened?”
“I think that those are my private thoughts, to keep to myself. I’d rather you not know,” Mischa spat.
Noel sighed, slumping in his seat and kicking his feet onto the couch. “I wish you would have met her while you were still alive.”
“Yeah, me too.”
And he meant it. He wished he had met Talia. He wished he had told Noel he knew, and would have seen what happened. But they were dead now. It felt like it was too late to ask why Noel did it. Maybe Mischa just didn’t want to get his hopes up. His hopes shouldn’t have been up in the first place. Noel was a liar, there was no reason Mischa should feel things like that towards him.
And yet, he had such dreams. Such a poetic undertone to his voice, telling Mischa that if only Noel had more time to grow, he could write sonnets and eulogies, he could shout the words Mischa only dreamed to conjure. Mischa was not a poet. He liked reading poetry, but he could not write it. There was a certain point at which he gave up being vulnerable with his pen and started to rap about money in auto tune. Noel did not have that point. Noel could keep talking for ages, could make his words mean something.
Even when he was singing about Talia, he had no words. He hoped his voice packed enough emotion to show meaning. Truthfully, he didn’t know why he sang it. He was singing it to Noel, of whom he did not have feelings for— refused to. Maybe Noel understood that he was singing to him. Maybe he didn’t. But in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t really matter. Noel didn’t reciprocate any feelings towards Mischa.
And even if he did, it wasn’t like Mischa had feelings for Noel. He just wanted to… to have a relationship. To not feel so sick and lonely, so desperate for romance. The only reason he felt like that around Noel was because Noel himself stank of romance, a hopeless romantic who wanted to live his life in France smoking cigarettes and eating fancy French food.
Mischa had listened to every word Noel said while driving him to and from the mall. Noel had done the same for Mischa. He couldn’t ask for a better friend than Noel— he shouldn’t waste his friendship for some silly hope. A hope that he wasn’t sure he really hoped, after all. Mischa destroyed everything he came near— his mother, his adoptive family, the St. Cassian’s choir— and no matter how he felt about Noel, he didn’t want to ruin him as well.
“Noel,” he asked, “Do you think she would’ve loved me as I loved her?”
Noel smiled a bit, almost not there. “Yeah.”
“I wish our lives hadn’t ended like this.”
They sat in a comfortable silence for a few placid moments, before Noel picked up the book of French poetry Mischa had left on the coffee table. “Were you reading this?”
“No,” Mischa answered quickly.
“You can speak French?”
“You can’t? Isn’t it a… a common language in Canada?”
“Well, yes, but I never learned it. When you live in a small town in the middle of nowhere, there aren’t many extra-curricular activities to pick up. But how do you know French?”
“As my mother said, I’m a polyglot. It’s not hard for me to learn new languages, really, you have to be adaptable when you are expected to be able to travel to Canada and interact seamlessly. Still, knowing words is different than knowing how to use them.” ‘Noel knows how to use words,’ Mischa thought. ‘What if he talked and I interpreted? Helped the universe in some way. That’d be awesome.’
YEARS LATER
“…and describe the indescribable, because nothing is impossible… NOEL WHAT DO I SAY NOW?”
“And don’t harm others, because to hurt others is to take on the wrongs they have committed and carry them with you in your heart.”
“And don’t harm…”
NOEL
“Will you teach me to speak French?”
Mischa visibly flinched. Noel wondered why, and knew it would end up being one of those scenes he replayed over and over in his head. “Sure, why not?” Mischa replied, despite his expression.
“I mean you don’t have to, I just thought…” Noel was not usually like this. Usually he controlled the room, he was the star. He couldn’t think straight or talk right around Mischa, though. Around Mischa, he stumbled over his words and messed up and couldn’t recover. He hated it.
He loved when words rushed out of him in flowing patterns like rivers, undammable rivers charging through his bloodstream from his heart to his head, finding the perfect word to describe the ache in his chest, the extra breath he had to take. He lived for the moment he found a way to express his desperation, if even those moments were far and few between, they were precious. He inhaled the world and exhaled words on threads.
When Noel was alive, he had dreamed of things he knew were impossible and chased the things he knew to be unlikely. Noel would likely never have enough money to move to France, but he knew he could never live in the 1940s as Lola Lola. So he could hope for a dream that might never come true, he could chase after fantasies that warmed his heart. He could lust after an impossible future and yearn for the horrible past, but that would not make his dreams come true.
That was before he died. As Mischa had said, he was cut down before the poems could come out of him. If Noel was a plant, he was a dying one. One that was never watered, kept out of sunlight. A plant that wasn’t good enough to be loved. That wasn’t enough to make the words he told himself come true, that he was normal, that he was important, that he was okay, that people would miss him if he was gone.
As it turned out, Taco Bell catered his funeral. Only a few people showed up, which seemed fitting. Few friends in life, less friends in death. His only real friends were made vicariously through his dreams. What he would pay to be Lola Lola, to have the violently romantic lifestyle so many like him dreamed of.
Noel left Mischa’s apartment without another word. He went up to his own room— in contrast to Mischa’s, which was all comfortable neutrals and soft, warm colors, Noel’s apartment was all dark greys, crisp edges, and blood reds. The modern grey couch sat in front of a TV, which cycled through French new wave cinema movies.
Mischa had told Noel his life was tragic, but was that really true? Was he tragic, or just sad? Or just horrible?
ONE YEAR EARLIER
Noel wasn’t sure why he did it. It was likely because he was pining over Mischa, but it was immoral. His mother would hate him for that. In fact, it went against everything his mother believed about truth and honesty and kindness. He knew it was wrong. But surely, this could do no harm, right? What was the worst that could happen? Mischa would never know it was him. No one could be so attached to someone they met online.
Well, it turned out that wasn’t true. Mischa was in love with Talia. Talia, not Noel, and that was what hurt worst of all. Mischa fell for Talia. Talia was the person Noel had used to be himself, and Mischa fell for her, the truest form of Noel. The form of himself he was scared to show anyone, even Mischa.
When he was Talia, he made jokes about leaving people in ditches to rot, being Monique Gibeau, and Mischa didn’t judge. Mischa thought he was funny, fascinating. And Mischa loved him, but would never love him. Mischa was captivated by Talia, Mischa would never leave her. Mischa would never meet her. And worse, when Mischa learned about Noel, he would never speak to him or Talia again. Noel had tried to fess up a few times, but it always went worse.
Me: Mischa, I have something to tell you.
Mischa: I actually have something to tell you first.
Me: Alright, you first.
Mischa: I’m in love with you.
Me: That’s exactly what I was going to say!
Or, even worse, this happened.
Me: Mischa I have something that I really need to get off my chest.
Mischa: Me first. I may not live in Ukraine anymore, but someday I would like to visit you in Kyiv. So I’m asking you now, would you marry me?
Noel wasn’t willing to break Mischa’s heart. He didn’t know what to do, other than continue the lie.
Me: Yes!
Mischa: What was it you were going to say, though?
Me: I actually am brunette, not blonde. I played with the lighting in my profile picture.
Noel had never wished for anything like he wished that he had never lied to Mischa. Well, other than to be Lola Lola. But either way, he regretted everything to do with Talia. Even so, the conversations he had were eye-opening, serious, and philosophical. Sure, Noel had to add in some grammar here and there to make google translate make sense, but everything was sensible. Sometimes he even learned stuff about his classmates. He didn’t know Mischa paid attention. Apparently Anthony Alderson ripped his cross necklace off in the middle of class, Penny Lamb had a little brother Ezra she loved more than life, and Barb Johnson skipped religion class every Tuesday and Thursday.
On a more serious note, a conversation he had once had with Mischa went as follows:
Mischa: Canadians are weird, I think a lot of them go by their middle names.
Me: Really? I haven’t ever heard of that.
Mischa: Yeah, my friend Savannah says she’s called Ricky and is saving up the name Savannah until she can give it away.
Me: Oh, they’re probably transgender! Ask them their pronouns. If they are actually transgender, it’s very rude to call them their old name.
Mischa: I have no idea why my first thought was Canadians being weird. I should’ve thought Ricky might be transgender. I’ve got to go ask for their pronouns, now.
From then on, Noel noticed, Mischa referred to Ricky as “he” or “him” in all their conversations, in-person or online. Noel started to do the same. Ricky looked surprised the first time he heard Noel refer to him as Ricky, but also happy. He looked glad to be listened to.
PRESENT
Noel opened his eyes from a long nap he hadn’t intended to take, only to see Ricky, Constance, and Ocean standing above him. Which was not his favorite sight for a plethora of reasons. The first being his ongoing feud with Ocean, the second being he was tired, the third being that he just didn’t feel like holding a conversation at that particular moment.
“Ricky told us everything,” Ocean said as soon as she saw Noel’s eyes flutter.
“Oh, sweet Jesus, I’ll never escape her,” Noel muttered. “What did Ricky tell you about?”
“Well, he didn’t tell me, he told Constance, who told me.”
“Sorry,” Constance put in.
“I’m also sorry!” Ricky shouted from the kitchen, where he was raiding Noel’s pantry.
“You have to tell Mischa you’re Talia. You’re being dishonest,” Ocean told him, as bossy as ever.
Noel groaned. “I can’t do that.”
“And why not?” Constance said as she sat down on the ottoman in front of Noel.
“It’s too late now. I took it too far. I got engaged to him, for Christ’s sake. How am I supposed to…”
“To what?” Constance asked.
“To make Mischa love him as much as Mischa loves Talia,” Ocean figured, her voice softened, “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Noel agreed. “And Ricky, how did you know?”
“Oh, zolarian prophets have great intuition! It comes from their catlike sense.”
Noel groaned. Ocean opened her mouth to speak again, but Constance interrupted.
“Ocean, maybe you should hear him out. You must’ve been in a situation kind of like this before, you would have wanted a nice ear.”
“I wouldn’t have catfished Mischa!”
“No, but you wouldn’t have wanted to,” Noel said, looking down at his feet to avoid eye contact. “I wanted to. And it went too far, and I regret it.”
Ocean would not settle for that. “Why did you want to do it? Because you thought making fun of him would be a nice pastime? Or because—”
“My zolarian senses are tingling,” Ricky cut in. “I think it would be best not to pry. Noel, how many French cookbooks do you need?”
“There is always more to bake,” Noel said in his most heartless booze-hound harlot voice.
Ocean exhaled quickly, like a frustrated puff of air that was meant to erase her of all negativity around her. “Look, Noel, I don’t understand what you’re doing, thinking, or saying. I don’t understand why you started this or what you thought would happen. The only thing I understand is that Mischa will never meet Talia, thinks he will meet her once again in a few decades, and will cling onto that hope until rejection stings him. The truth will come out eventually, and I think you’d rather it be from you than from his own findings.”
With that, Ocean left. Constance followed, and Ricky stayed around to look through one of Noel’s cookbooks. He leafed through the pages for a minute, reading the complicated recipes Noel had every intention to master. Noel swallowed, prepared to be scolded. “Ricky?”
Ricky looked up in answer, but didn’t say anything. Noel supposed he had gotten used to silent replies.
“Ricky, just say it.”
“Say what?”
“Whatever it is you want to say.”
“Noel, what you do is none of my business. I don’t care what you do, but keep in mind the one rule of the Bachelor Man Bible: don’t be a dick.”
With that, Ricky left, too.
ELEVEN MONTHS EARLIER:
“I’m just saying, Lola Lola would totally beat Han Solo in a fight.”
“No, she wouldn’t! Han Solo has laser blasters and Chewbacca to back him up.”
“Yeah, but Lola Lola would trick him. Plus, she has guns too.”
“Sure, she has guns, but Han has laser blasters.”
“Is there a difference?”
“A gun fires bullets, a laser blaster fires lasers.”
“Bullets are worse than lasers. At least with lasers, there’s never any removal needed. The infection from the bullet can be just as bad as the bullet wound itself.”
Mischa stared. “Why do you know this? How much time do you spend around guns? Sick.”
Noel laughed at Mischa’s amazement. “None, actually. I tend to avoid real-life violence, but if I can watch it through the silver-screen, all the better.”
Noel tried not to lie. He really did, he had a sense of candor that kept his pride intact. But when he was around Mischa, as happy as he was, he felt like he was sitting on the edge of a canyon, teetering towards a fall, trying to stay in Mischa’s good graces. He knew Mischa wouldn’t ever judge him, but still, he felt like the second Mischa saw a scrap of something else in Noel, the world would collapse. Mischa would see him for who he truly was: a liar, an oaf, an idiot who lives vicariously through French new wave cinema. A nobody, trying to escape a nowhere town.
The one thing Noel felt he didn’t have to be scared about, though, was his movies. They brought so much joy to his sour heart that he forgot to be afraid. And Mischa hadn’t judged Noel, no matter how much he talked about his obsessive passion. Instead, he had told of his own nerdy pastimes, like Starwars, Transformers, any Will Smith or Adam Sandler movie. The one outlier of this was his love of the Saw movies. “They have good morals,” Mischa would say.
Mischa pulled the car to a halt as they reached the MegaMall. “What time do you get off today?”
“Looks like 7:30 today. You?”
“6:45. I’ll wait for you.”
“You don’t have to, I can walk home.”
“You say that every day, Noel, and every day I wait for you anyway. Why would I leave without you today?”
Noel shrugged. “If you want any affordable Mexican cuisine, feel free to use my employee discount.”
They walked in opposite directions, Mischa towards the movie-theater and Noel towards the Taco Bell. Unlike Mischa, Noel held a particular disdain for his job. While Mischa seemed to be content sweeping popcorn as long as he got his money at the end of the day, Noel yearned for something more. He was saving his money to move to France, but when would that day come? At the rate his bank account was growing, never. He would wait endlessly for a country that would never wait for him. He would never have the life he dreamed of, and even before that he would have to live a life of sweeping floors, cleaning Baja Blast machines, and silently crying for countless hours in many different bathroom stalls, hoping for a switch on his life.
To be frank, Mischa made Noel’s life more fun. More interesting. While Noel was too scared to break rules (that was reserved for the movies), Mischa was unphased stealing a box of communion wine for his small cousin to drink. And while Mischa had definitely set a bad example for his little cousin, Noel admired that he had the guts to do it. Not the giving alcohol to children part, though, that was definitely wrong.
Mischa wasn’t scared to break rules, but he wasn’t some twat who was angry when he faced the consequences of his own actions. He knew exactly what would happen before he broke any rule, and was prepared to take the fall for it. That was what really fascinated Noel. When Mischa saw some guys shouting at a group of teenage girls in the movie theatre, he beat them up and accepted the salary cut his boss gave him. When some assholes made Chernobyl jokes at school, Mischa was willing to cuss them out and take detention for it. He was willing to miss mass because he wasn’t Catholic, knowing full well he would have to write an essay on the importance of coming to church services afterwards. And that was the best part.
Mischa was a roll-with-the-punches type of guy. He didn’t need to be told a plan. He was willing to lose money, take detention, write essays and join choirs for his purposeful mistakes. That was what enchanted Noel the most. The “worth it” his eyes seemed to hint when he smirked as his newest punishment was doled out. Noel wasn’t brave enough or casual enough to take those punishments without completely freaking out. But Mischa was. His immediate willingness to take a punishment made Noel realize that he understood the consequences. And he was fine with them.
Noel longed for a strong arm to lean on, and Mischa’s was it. Noel knew it was stupid, even when he read over his own diary he ended up cringing at his words, wanting to tear out the pages. But it was true. Mischa was everything he needed.
PRESENT
Noel was making croissants again. He had dedicated his last day to this pastry. Per usual, the French did it better. With the culture, the language, and the food. Especially the food. Sure, it was complicated and time consuming, and sure, people spent their lives perfecting their French cooking, but that didn’t make the outcome any less delicious. Noel, however, had always had a knack for anything nihilistic— ranging from French movies to French cooking. The art of timing did not escape him, and nor did his ego.
Perhaps it was foolish of him to attempt croissants without a recipe. Everything had gone well. He had made the détrempe, successfully formed a well in the middle of it, and mixed in the water without any issue. The butter had been the perfect temperature, the dough was smooth and stretchy, and he had cut into the dough flawlessly. His creation was beautiful. He even rolled up the triangles without a single one being lopsided or rolled too far to one side.
He figured he would bake them until golden-brown, so that they would be just slightly flakey, and perfectly crisp. Noel’s French food dream. He didn’t have a timer set, as even he himself had no idea how long they would take. He planned to just watch the croissants closely. A risky gamble, indeed.
Then Mischa knocked on the door.
Which was the exact opposite of perfect timing, since Noel’s hands were messy and his hair had noticeably gotten flour in it, of which he was sure was less than sanitary. Definitely not acceptable in a real French kitchen. Still, never being able to deny a guest, he shouted, “Come in!”
Mischa walked in, took one look at Noel, and laughed. Laughed, literally laughed. Not a chuckle, a full on cackle of a laugh. “Yes, I look very much in order,” Noel mumbled, trying his best at sarcasm. It only made Mischa laugh harder.
“I’m sorry. It’s just, you look like something exploded in your face. Like, there was a flour issue. And your face got the worst of it, really.”
“Gee, thanks,” Noel said, attempting dry humor once again. To his surprise, he was smiling. He really didn’t mean to smile, he just got like this around Mischa. Like he was floating in space, like Mischa was the thing keeping him from being tethered to reality and he was okay with it. Mischa was the thing that allowed him to live his own life inside his mind, and without him, Noel felt like he would face the cold hard truth of reality. He had only known Mischa for the past year and a half, but he truly—
The croissants were burnt.