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“Tao, Thua, Jack,” Pete says, “This is Niran, a new friend.”
The three boys wai respectfully and say in unison, “Nice to meet you, phi.”
Tao peeks through his fingers momentarily, surveying the face of this new acquaintance. He appears no-nonsense, a stiffness in his expression making it challenging to decipher what exactly he’s thinking. It’s weird to see someone this serious entangled with someone so.. Not.
Tao decides to ask, “How’d you two meet, P’Pete?”
Pete grins, flashing a peace sign. “He stalked me at the gambling den.”
“When the hell did that ever happen?” Niran argues, his voice a booming wall of sound. Tao can imagine how it echoes in the air as the man chants incantations and banishes demons from the world.
But their P’Pete laughs, carefree. He throws his arm around the man’s shoulders and teases the man incessantly. Their P’Pete joyously flits around Niran like iridescent bubbles floating under the sun. Tao has never witnessed his phi this buoyant before, as if the exponential weight that usually sits on his shoulders never existed in the first place.
Tao, Jack, and Thua have known their P’Pete for a long time. The weight, at times, was near suffocating.
“You trust him, P’Pete?” Tao asks.
The question is not a challenge to his phi’s judgement, but an offering of solemnity. Pete, taken aback by the gravity in Tao’s words, stumbles to a stop. Something profound suffuses his eyes when he regards Niran momentarily, and then the three of them. He answers just as solemnly as he was asked.
“With my life.”
Niran gazes at their P’Pete in that undecipherable way he always does.
Tao nods, hitching a leg over his motorcycle, this time with sureness.
“Okay. Let’s wake your fucking demon up!”
“Niran bought my house,” Pete mumbles.
Tao, Jack, and Thua wander into Pete’s room in shock. The interior is now accented with things that weren’t there before: a row of multi-colored luggage standing in attention by the far wall, a hiking backpack slumped onto the floor, and bright, yellow tape cutting the space in half.
“Why’d he do that?” Jack asks, confused.
Pete scratches the back of his neck, embarrassed. “It’s temporary. He’ll give it back, I know it.”
Tao shakes his head in disbelief. “P’Pete, should we kick his ass for you? I know he’s a magician or something, but we’ll gladly do it.”
Pete holds both hands out in front of him. “No. Don’t.” He sighs, forlorn. “I train harder, I get stronger. I get stronger, I control the monkey demon. I use my ability to defeat Qi Rong, I get the house back. It’s just motivation.”
“That’s still below the belt.”
Pete appeals, “Calm down, I got this -”
Jack digs the bases of his palms against his temples, distraught, “What if he’s lying? Phi, you can lose your home!”
“You worked so hard for the down payment, phi!” Thua protests. “I don’t care how rich he is, he still can’t treat you like this!”
“I trust Niran, okay?”
“We don’t!”
“What about the pictures on the wall?! ” Jack demands, his voice faltering midway, wrung into heavy knots in his throat. “The spot for your trophies, the place where you last saw your parents..” There’s a wet sheen in Jack’s eyes when he finally sobs out, “He can’t take your home!”
Pete allows his shoulders to soften as he exhales heavily through his lips. Jack has always been the crybaby of the group. He cried the first time he fell off his bike, just as he cried when he first lost his lunch money to the slot machines. He cried the first time his parents found out he got kicked out of school for being a hooligan.
He hasn’t been a good brother to these kids, Pete knows. It’s one of the bitter, chalky pills Niran had forced him to swallow the past few days.
“C’mon,” Pete murmurs, his hand patting consolingly onto Jack’s head, “Do you really think I’d let anybody take my home?”
Jack shakes his head, rubbing his eyes repeatedly with his fingers.
“I don’t need you three to be mad for me,” Pete says. “All I need is for you to cheer me on. Okay?” He gets a few silent nods in return. He grins, culls all his brothers into his arms, and into a bone-crushing group hug. “I said, ‘okay?’”
“Okay, okay!” Tao gasps, struggling against the tight arm hooked around his neck, “We got it, phi!”
Pete releases his hold and nods brightly. “Good. We’re gonna clean up the living room today.” He makes his way to the door, grabbing a small framed photo from Niran’s side of the room on his way there. He then pauses, hand to the jamb. He looks over his shoulder.
“By the way, Niran didn’t take my home.” There’s a small, incomprehensible smile on his mouth. “We’re sharing it.”
“Getting a spot on the mantle is a big responsibility, phi.”
Niran looks up from the assortment of frames perched on the surface of Pete’s cabinet. Beside him stands one of the three kids Pete dotes on - Thua’s his name, Niran thinks. Thua shifts his weight from one foot to the other, arms crossed huffily as he attempts to control the wary glower on his face.
Niran almost laughs: the kid is posturing like a chihuahua. “Is it?” he asks. He ever-so-slightly straightens the picture of him and his grandpa.
Thua juts his chin confidently. “Yeah! It means you’re in, and you better not think of turning back.” He points a finger towards an oval-shaped frame, where a significantly younger, grinning Pete stands beside three kids wearing bicycle helmets. “We were neighbors, you know. P’Pete taught us how to ride bikes.”
A corner of Niran’s mouth twitches upward. He schools it. “Did he teach you how to race motorbikes, too?”
Thua huffs his chest proudly. “Of course!”
“You three should’ve been in school,” Niran points out.
“Hey, we are in school!” Thua argues. “We just.. Skip sometimes, that’s all.”
“Skipping’s not the point.” Niran takes out another small frame, this time of him and Fei, and props it next to the photo of Pete with his sister. “Holing yourselves in gambling dens is.”
Thua’s confidence falters, giving way to an embarrassed vulnerability that betrays his age. He unconsciously fiddles with the hem of his shirt. “We didn’t gamble at first. We just wanted to go in to watch over P’Pete because he wasn’t well.”
“You were kids. Still are. You shouldn’t have been there no matter what, and Pete should’ve known that.”
“He did!” Thua presses, hackles raised once more. “We were the ones who were stubborn. We went to the gambling dens no matter what he said.”
Niran turns to Thua fully, facing him head-on. “Why, then?”
“Because when your loved one goes to hell, you follow him there.” Thua clenches his fist around the hem with which he was nervously playing just moments ago. Now, he grips it with conviction. “When you’re on the mantle, there’s no turning back.”
Niran watches as the boy before him struggles with the glassiness in his eyes. Thua clenches and unclenches the fabric of his shirt, fighting the urge to scratch away the wetness that clung to the cliff of his lashes. Niran has forgotten what childhood truly entails: fear. These three kids are afraid that their brother is going to die.
Thua finally speaks after schooling his emotions.“You’re on here now, phi.” He plants a hand on the cabinet. “So promise me you’re not gonna turn your back on P’Pete.”
Niran takes a couple of steps forward. He offers a handshake. “Promise.”
“‘Kay,” Thua mumbles, taking the offered hand in his. “I swear I’m watching you.”
Niran snorts. “You really are a guard dog.”
That night, Niran binds his soul with Pete to save his life.
Thua takes it as a promise fulfilled.
Jack brings it up first.
“P’Pete is being weird.”
Thua waves a dismissing hand in the air, the other fiddling with the game controls on his phone. “Everything that has happened to us in the past two weeks is weird. Gotta be more specific than that.”
“No, not demon things!” Jack urges before falling into careful silence. He secretively leans onto the handles of his bike, whispering, “Like, falling-in-love-things.”
Tao bursts into rambunctious laughter, head thrown so far back he almost falls off his seat. He wheezes, “What the hell are you even talking about?!”
Jack blinks at his friends. “It hasn’t happened to you?”
Tao cluelessly shrugs.
“Since the soul-binding thing two days ago,” Jack argues. “You guys haven’t noticed anything weird?”
Thua abandons his game, hopping off his bike and throwing a comforting arm over Jack’s shoulders. “The demon slaying thing is finally getting to him. Should we find someone to talk to?”
Jack vengefully digs an elbow into Thua’s side. “I’m not going crazy, asshole!”
“Well, you sure are acting like it!” Thua groans through gritted teeth.
Jack peels himself away from Thua and starts pacing a path around his motorcycle. “Don’t you think P’Pete has been acting strange since meeting P’Niran? Come on, use your brains! Think back to all the times we’ve seen them together!”
“Tell us, then,” Tao says. He’s not about to run his mouth without probable cause. “You haven’t told us what exactly happened to you that’s making you act this way.”
Jack pauses, head cocked awkwardly to the side. “Well.. it doesn’t matter. Because you’ll see it for yourself soon.”
Tao nods. “Sure. Looking forward to it.”
“You know what I’ve always wondered?”
Niran stirs, eyes fluttering open from his nap. An uncontrollable stretch pulls his body taut before collapsing back onto the couch cushions. He blinks as the blurry visage of Pete pulls into sharper and sharper focus, materializing beside him.
Pete is sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back against the couch. He cups a hand over his ear, his eyes closed as he practices his listening.
“What?” Niran mumbles, his mouth feeling like cotton. It takes him a moment to get his bearings straight.
“If you’ve ever cut your hair short before,” Pete’s mouth pulls into an affectionate grin. “Or if you’ve always looked like a button mushroom your whole life.”
Niran rubs the sleepiness from his eyes, only to find Pete significantly closer as Pete directs an outstretched hand towards him. Slender fingers gingerly part the middle of Niran’s bangs until they rake parallel paths through the thickness of his hair. Niran can feel the roughness of Pete’s callouses against his scalp in tandem with the softer parts of his fingertips. Pete hums under his breath as he combs the short dashes of hair away from Niran’s eyes.
“Damn, that’s so much better,” Pete mutters, a gentle smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Now I can see your eyes.”
Niran feels an unbearable thickness in his throat that he has to swallow.
“I know a really good barber. You interested?”
Niran finds himself nodding.
Pete’s smile grows so big it makes him wink. “Nice. I’ll give him a call.” Just like that, Niran’s hair flops back to its original form. Pete faces the wall, presses his hand against his ear, and closes his eyes once more.
“Gotta go pee,” Niran mumbles as he scrambles over the back of the couch.
Pete waves his hand in the air. “Aim straight.”
Tao scrambles into the group’s shared room, hair askew. Jack looks up at him, abandoning his comic book for a brief moment.
“P’Pete’s in love,” Tao mumbles, “Our P’Pete’s in love.”
Jack jumps to his feet, comic book flying in the air as he does. “Who’s crazy now, huh?! I told you!”
Wait, what?! Thua yells from inside the bathroom. The spray of water abruptly stops, followed by the metallic shrill of the shower curtain flying open. A pained yelp and a whole minute of panicked scrambling later, Thua bursts from behind the door of their shared bathroom. “What the fuck do you mean P’Pete’s in love?!”
“He’s..” Tao blinks down at his hands in delayed realization. “He’s gay? Or does he like both girls and guys?”
“You think he’s a bicycle?” Jack asks.
“Bisexual, dumbass,” Tao corrects with a roll of his eyes. “And yeah, maybe. All we have to go by is the one ex-girlfriend he had four years ago.”
“P’Pete likes P’Niran,” Jack presses. “When I had P’Niran’s face, he just looked at me different.”
“How the hell did he look at you?” Thua demands.
“Like..” Jack struggles with himself, his hands gesturing in the air. “I can’t describe it! What do I know about love? I’m just a dumb teenager!”
Tao weakly climbs onto the spot next to Jack, as if all the energy has been zapped from his body. “Damn. P’Pete really knows how to sweep a guy off his feet.”
Jack gives the other’s newly acquired, porcupine-like hairdo a poke. “He swept your hair back?”
Thua sighs. “He was smooth with it, too. You?”
Jack presents his band-aid-wrapped thumb. “Bandaged my cut. Look, it’s Hello Kitty.”
Thua throws his hands in the air in frustration. “Am I the only one who hasn’t witnessed P’Pete being all in love?!”
Tao throws Jack’s comic book in Thua’s direction. “Shut up.”
“You asshole!” Thua hisses, rubbing the spot on his arm where it landed. “But do you think P’Niran feels the same?”
“Dunno,” Tao mumbles. “It’s always so hard to figure out what the guy’s thinking.”
Jack falls, deep in thought. “I mean.. He did bond their souls together. Isn’t that proof enough?”
Thua shakes his head stubbornly. “Nuh-uh. No way I’m giving away P’Pete to somebody who may have only soul-bonded with him to save the world from demons.”
“Wait, wait,” Tao interrupts, “We don’t know he did it only for demons.”
Thua slams a fist onto the mattress. “We need to know. But how?”
Tao raises his hand confidently. “I know a way. But we gotta do it now.”
Niran winces at the hiss of oil pricking the skin of his arm. He cranks the heat down and lifts the pan from the stove momentarily. He watches as his chopped garlic burns into charcoal before his very eyes.
“Uh, you burnt it.”
Niran cranes his neck to the side, only to see Pete looking over his shoulder. “What were you planning to make?” Pete asks curiously.
“.. Spaghetti.” Niran mumbles, still holding the pan.
Pete’s brow ascends to his hairline. “Don’t you usually get lunch delivered?”
Niran sets the pan down again, scooping the charred garlic out of the oil with a spoon. “Well, yeah, usually. Wanted to try something new.”
Pete mouths a silent ‘oh’, nodding slowly in understanding as he slinks around the kitchen, walking in circles with his hands pinned together behind him. Niran glances at him, confused. “Do you have something to say?”
Pete gawks, pointing a finger at himself. “Me? Psh. No.”
“Then why are you stalking me like a hyena in the wild?” Niran asks bluntly, accentuating his words with every chop of his knife against the wooden board.
“I just wanna hang out with you!” Pete exclaims. “You should play this mobile game with me, it just came out, and the graphics look insane -”
“If you’re gonna impersonate your phi, try doing a better job,” Niran drawls. He picks up a handful of garlic cloves from a jar and lobs a piece in Pete’s direction. “Take a couple of acting classes, even, hm?”
“What the - it is me!” Another clove bounces off Pete’s forehead. Then another, and another. “Ugh, it stinks, stop!”
“Not until you tell me why you’re using Pete’s face to trick me.”
Pete attempts to swat away the barrage of garlic bullets that is now being rained upon him. “Being rich doesn’t mean you get to waste food, asshole!”
Niran pretends to throw a three-point shot, and the clove bounces right at the top of Fake Pete’s head. “Get your friends to come out from where they’re hiding, too.”
“Ahh, fuck! How’d you even know?!” Fake Pete demands from behind the tray he’s using as a shield. He peeks over its metal edge when he feels the tactical assault stop.
Niran fires one last clove onto fake Pete’s tray for good measure. It bounces off the surface with a metallic clang. “Because I know half of my soul, idiot. And you’re not him.”
“Wait - what did you say?”
Niran looks up and finds a second Fake Pete hanging over the railings of the bannister. Second Fake Pete runs down the stairs and rushes to Niran, waving a knowing finger under Niran’s nose.
“Say what you just said again.”
Niran scowls at Second Fake Pete, nudges away the accosting finger, and says slowly, “I said I know half of my soul, idiots, and I don’t feel it in him. Or you, for that matter.”
Second Fake Pete grins triumphantly. “That is so not what you said!”
“That’s exactly what I said.”
“I have video proof!” The third and final Fake Pete jumps out from behind the living room couch, his phone in the air.
Niran’s jaw grows slack in disbelief as he watches the third iteration of his friend scramble towards his direction. “What the hell do you three need video proof for?!”
Third Fake Pete shrugs nonchalantly before hitting play on the recording. All of them fall silent as they listen to Niran’s voice ring in the air, crisp and as clear as a summer’s day.
“See? Exactly,” Niran pokes his pointer finger onto First Fake Pete’s forehead. “The,” He pokes the second. “Same,” He pokes the third.
Second Fake Pete, the slyest of all the Fake Petes (probably Tao, Niran thinks), grins up at him knowingly. “It’s not. You didn’t say ‘I know half of my soul, I don’t feel it in him.” He pokes a finger into Niran’s heart with every word of what he says next. “I know half of my soul, and you’re not him.” Second Fake Pete spreads his arms before him as if to present to the jury his closing statement. “That’s what you said, phi.”
Niran blinks, rubbing his sore chest with his palm. An unsettled furrow grows on his brow. “There’s no difference.”
First Fake Pete’s eyes light up in realization. “Yes, there is.”
Niran, irate, waves him away. “Shut up.”
Third Fake Pete has a hand over his mouth. “That’s.. wow.”
The silence that follows is unbearable to the point that Niran would prefer the quiet of his deathbed. Three Petes look at him with twinkling wonder in their wide, ridiculous eyes. That, and the soreness in Niran’s chest now transmutates into a twinge of something unnamed. He digs his fingers deeper into the spot, willing it away.
“Okay then,” Second Fake Pete says with finality. “What do you guys think?”
The three Fake Petes exchange satisfied glances, nodding in agreement about something to which Niran is still very much not privy. He decides to give up on ever knowing; he’s preoccupied by a more tenacious thought at the moment.
“Okay, we’re good.” A Fake Pete, what order he is, Niran has forgotten, plants an encouraging hand on Niran’s shoulder. “You’re good, phi.” His eyes gleam with remembrance. “Oh, and you have an appointment with P’Pete’s barber tomorrow. Don’t forget!”
And with that, all three of them climb the stairs to the second floor and disappear from Niran’s sight.
Niran, as he stands in a kitchen littered with garlic cloves, mutters in absolute horror, “What the ever-loving fuck just happened?”
The evening sun is a hazy orange and temperate against Niran’s skin.
He sees the staticky, light-leaked overlay of its light superimposed upon the back of his eyelids. He feels the bowed blades of grass underneath him tickle the skin of his folded legs. He smells the slivers of fine smoke rising from the crumbling ash of the incense he had perched on the earth before he started his meditation.
In the darkness of his closed eyes, he senses another presence: a golden spectre that gravitates in his direction. Said presence flops right beside him, warm and scintillating, and takes a deep breath of air.
“That’s not how I taught you to breathe,” Niran mumbles under his breath, eyes still closed.
Pete, the real one this time, says, “Can’t help it.” Niran could nearly hear the grin on his mouth. “It’s just so damn relaxing out here.”
Niran cracks open an eye and regards Pete with it. “Like it’s good for meditation, huh?”
Pete finally realizes Niran’s point and laughs sheepishly. “Oops. Sorry. Should I go?”
Niran stifles a yawn, stretching like a big cat under a warm patch of sun. He slumps onto the grass, his head cradled by a folded arm. “It’s fine. I’m done, anyway.”
Pete shifts beside Niran, and a soft thud tells Niran that Pete has settled onto the grass himself. Above their heads, wisps of silver gracefully dance to the tune of the gentle breeze, superimposed upon the dusky tangerine of twilight. The clouds float by, dappled with light.
“Hey,” Pete murmurs, almond eyes blinking blearily up at the painting in the sky, “Tell me one thing about yourself I don’t know yet.”
Niran snorts. “Why do you want to know?”
“I don’t know,” Pete gripes, scratching his chest through his shirt. “My heart’s itchy ever since we soul-bonded.”
“Your heart’s itchy?” Niran repeats.
“Yeah!” Pete exclaims. “Like, it just won’t settle. Itchy. You know?”
Niran laughs. “No, I don’t know!”
Pete starts laughing, too. “Well, I don’t know how else to explain it!”
Their laughs tangle with incense smoke in the air. They eventually catch their breath.
“Go on,” Pete presses, nudging the back of Niran’s hand with his. “Give me my one Niran fact of the day.”
“You actually think knowing one new thing about me will cure that itch?” Niran asks, appalled by the logic. He regards Pete with suspicious-tinged curiosity.
Pete shrugs. “Well, yeah. I’m always wondering about you.”
By virtue of the soul-bond or something even scarier, Niran feels the same itch deep in his chest. He coughs, pressing the base of his palm against his sternum. He’s been doing that a lot today. “What do you want to know?”
“How about..” Pete hums in thought. “When’s your birthday?”
Niran bites his bottom lip. “Maybe not that.”
Pete drapes a listless, gossamer gaze over Niran’s face. “Too secret-y?”
“Just..” Niran mutters, “Don’t like celebrating. Not that there’s anybody to celebrate with.”
Pete flips onto his side, same molasses eyes tracing the outlines of Niran’s face. “Good thing you have a soulmate now, huh?”
The itch in Niran’s heart grows excruciating by the minute. He wonders if there’s a way to reach right past his ribs and shake the sick organ free of whatever ails it. Soul bonds aren’t supposed to ache like this.
“You don’t have to do anything for my birthdays,” Niran finally says.
“Don’t worry. I don’t do anything I don’t like. This birthday, the next. The one after that, and the one after-after that. I’m there.” Pete blinks blearily, a soft yawn prying his lips open. “But if you don’t want to tell me, that’s okay. I’ll just have to be with you every day.”
Niran doesn’t dare look away from the sky. He blinks up at it with the silent, indomitable horror of vulnerability. He feels laid bare on the grass, open for the world to see. It’s Pete’s gentle, rhythmic breathing that pulls him back to the present. Pete has fallen asleep, hair askew, head cradled by the bend of his elbow.
Niran, before he could stop himself, cups a hand over his mouth and whispers.
Pete’s eyes drift open as he smiles.
“I’ll mark it down.”
Pete and Niran both watch through the window as Jack, Tao, and Thua play an intense game of dodgeball in the backyard, kicking dirt and grass in the air as they do so. Tao flings the ball right at Thua, who expertly catches it with his face. Jack screams as he’s dragged onto the ground, dodgeball somehow veering into wrestling as they all attempt a headlock on whoever is closest within reach.
Niran scowls. “Your kids are awful.”
“Your kids now, too,” Pete answers. “We’re sharing everything, remember?”
“Please. We’re not sharing my money, and we’re sure as hell not sharing custody over three scheming brats.”
Pete turns to Niran. “Scheme? What did they do?”
Niran opens his mouth, only for no sound to come out of it. He snaps it shut once again. “Nothing. It’s not that bad, actually.”
Pete shrugs good-naturedly. “Fine. I’ll hear about it, eventually.” He glances at Niran, eyes fluttering around his head. He reaches out, nudges Niran to face his direction, and proceeds to run both hands through the short dashes of his new haircut. “Nice trim,” he notes. “Keep it like this, ‘kay?”
Niran nods, the movement short and curt.
A small smile tugs at the corner of Pete’s mouth before he steps back, taking his fingers with him. He collapses onto the couch and boots up the mobile game he’s been playing. Niran, on the other hand, could barely breathe.
A victorious whoop trills outside, followed by scattered clapping. Niran watches in abject horror as the three teenagers watch him through the window, dancing celebratorily at the scene they just witnessed. Thua pumps a fist in the air, and Jack gives him two thumbs up.
Niran groans. “Oh, fuck me.”