Chapter 117: 117 Starting Over, Part Three

The next morning Tsuyoshi dragged on his clothes, put his shoes on at the door, and stumbled into the sunshine where Zelko stood with a spiky flower in his hand. He offered it to Tsuyoshi with a smile.

"Why are you giving me a weed?" Tsuyoshi asked.

"Come on, it's pretty! It reminded me of you."

"If you say so." He tried not to roll his eyes.

"I know emotional stuff makes you uncomfortable, but I think it's sexy. I'm going to romance you until you squirm."

"And then?"

"And then I'm going to take those gigantic ugly jeans off your body. We should go buy you things that fit to replace everything we left behind."

"Probably not today." Tsuyoshi breathed in the morning air as he stepped further away from the front door. "Angharad would probably extol the idea of buying second hand."

"She could extol it now if you would call her."

Tsuyoshi had to unfurl his fist and let the tension go from his arm. He unfolded the fingers slowly, deliberately. "I'm working up to it."

*

The bag arrived from America first, an unexpected package that arrived with his name on it.

"Online shopping?" Sophie asked.

"I didn't buy anything," Tsuyoshi said.

He opened the box carefully, running scissors slowly over the layers and layers of tape. Inside was just his old bag, smaller than he remembered. He pulled it out and held it to the light. Lighter than he remembered, too. A piece of paper fell to the floor when he dumped the bag back on the table and opened it up.

Sophie bent down to pick it up, the lined paper a soft purple.

"It's from Angharad," she said.

He swallowed, looked back at the bag. "Of course it is. Who else would have sent this?"

He stomped off, bag in hand, but stopped in the doorway to look back at Sophie as she smiled at the letter.

"Ask your dad if he wants to keep the box," Tsuyoshi said.

"That's such a boring adult thing to say," she said.

"I'm an adult," Tsuyoshi said. "And it's a good box."

*

In the bedroom he opened up the bag again to look at its contents. His old denim jacket, neatly folded. A bunch of clean socks, rolled up in pairs. Those jeans he kept wearing even after they ripped open on the gravel in the industrial field. His old phone.

He pulled out one thing after another, looking at the remnants of his old life.

Nothing smelled dusty or old. The clothes must have been washed recently and the non-clothing items regularly aired out. These things had been cared for. He just wasn't sure he cared for any of them anymore.

Zelko came to the door when he was folding everything up again.

"Don't put them back in the bag. Put them in the drawers," Zelko said, ever the nag. "I liked you in those clothes. You need to keep them."

"You liked me better out of them."

And there it was, that slow lazy grin that set Tsuyoshi's heart on fire. His chest hurt as he looked at the way Zelko looked at him.

*

Zelko was there when the next package came, looking over Tsuyoshi's shoulder as he tore open the packaging.

"Let me look at it," Zelko said.

Tsuyoshi elbowed him back. "Fuck off." And then he looked at Sophie's dad and stepmother and felt guilty for letting them hear him swear.

Zelko pulled the contents of the package away from him while he was distracted.

"Croatian for Dummies? You know that's not going to work," Zelko said.

Tsuyoshi tore it from Zelko's hands. "It's just to start with. I'm not trying to learn the entire language from this."

"It's..." Then Zelko looked away and then back at him. "It's a nice start. I appreciate the effort."

Tsuyoshi scowled and looked away. "I'll get better at this than you are at French."

"Hey, I mean it. I appreciate this."

Zelko put his arms around Tsuyoshi in a loose hug. Tsuyoshi took a moment to relax enough to hug back and accept a kiss, and the longer the kiss went on the more he forgot why he was ever tense in the first place.

*

"We should probably talk about how this works," Zelko said, settling in on the armchair.

Mohamed had suggested they talk things out in the living room, so they wouldn't have the pressure of being surrounded by beds. Tsuyoshi chose not to tell them they could have sex anywhere. And anyway, the sex was the easy part. Talking about feelings was the hard part.

Tsuyoshi looked at his knees so he wouldn't have to look at Zelko's face. "Why do we have to?"

"Because we didn't figure this out last time and it crashed like the Titanic."

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"That's an understatement."

"You said you want me to be less intense," Zelko said. "What does that mean?"

"Don't suffocate me."

Zelko crossed his arms. "What do you want? You don't like when I'm intense. You don't like it when I pay attention to other people."

"Because I know what kind of person you are! You think I couldn't tell you're the kind of guy that comes on strong then tries it on with someone else as soon as things get hard? Which is exactly what happened."

"I didn't mean for that to happen!"

"Of course not," Tsuyoshi said, already angry. "Every man who does that didn't mean for that to happen. What a cliché. I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to think about what happened with Tabitha. I don't want to get angry at you for taking advantage of someone who is already dead!"

"She kissed me! Not the other way around."

Tsuyoshi looked up and narrowed his eyes at Zelko. "So you should have told me about it and left her in the care of someone else."

Zelko pointed at him. "Then you shouldn't have flirted with Ibrahim."

"That was not something I did. He was weird at me. I didn't make him act that way."

Zelko scoffed and looked away. Tsuyoshi took a moment to unfold his fists again.

"If I had told you when it happened, what would you have done?" Zelko's voice was soft, faded at the edges like a dream.

Tsuyoshi clutched at his knees. "I don't know. When did it actually happen?"

"During the zombie attack."

"Literally the worst time ever." He paused to turn it over in his mind. "I don't know what I would have done. I was already angry. I'm sick of being so angry all the time."

"I don't think I'm jealous that Ibrahim kissed you. I think I'm just jealous of everyone you have an emotional connection with."

"Yeah, like all my friends, which is crappy and inappropriate."

"Sorry." Zelko pushed his hair out of his eyes and leaned back. "It was because we hooked up in a war zone, wasn't it? That's why we got so weird about each other."

"Probably."

"Let me put this out there. If you wanted to kiss other people I might be okay with that as long as I'm the only person you're actually with."

Tsuyoshi raised his eyebrows. "I don't think I want to think about that."

"I'm not saying I want that option for myself."

"You are, though."

"I'm just saying, we could consider the idea."

The sky had gotten dark outside. Tsuyoshi could see rain through the window but wasn't sure when it had started.

"Ask me again in three weeks time. Maybe I'll have the energy for an answer then," Tsuyoshi said.

*

The big surprise came a few days later when Mohamed told him he had a visitor.

"Me?" Tsuyoshi asked, pointing a finger at himself. "Who would visit me? Almost nobody knows I'm here."

"And most of them don't like you," Zelko said. But he looked fond as he looked over at Tsuyoshi, so Tsuyoshi forgave it.

And then his uncle Tim walked through the door, hat in hands, and everyone else escaped the room. Tim looked kind of old, tired. His face looked like it had collapsed in sadness until it slid inches down from where it used to be, and his bony hands looked veiny and rough.

Tsuyoshi crossed his arms and hunched over.

Tim's mouth moved, but he didn't say anything. He looked small. Had he always been that small?

Tsuyoshi looked away.

"Hello," Tim said. His voice was timid. That was a new development.

"Yeah, hi." Tsuyoshi could feel himself getting small to match, and he didn't like it.

"I came to see you as soon as I could."

"Well, now you've seen me. Is that it?"

"If you would prefer it I could leave."

Tsuyoshi looked at Tim again, at his wrinkling hands and hangdog expression. "You flew all the way to France and that's it? At least sit down for a cup of tea."

Tim looked up, blinked in evident surprise, and nodded. What kind of arsehole was Tsuyoshi that uncle Tim would look so surprised he would offer at least that?

They sat down and didn't say much. Mohamed would probably say it was a start. And after he was gone, Tsuyoshi could try to contact Angharad.

It was only after Tim had gone back to his hotel with a stuttered promise to stay in contact that Sophie told Tsuyoshi she hadn't been able to talk to Angharad for days.

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