Archive of Our Own

3:11 again, though I'm not your best friend

don't you see I will do anything to keep you with me?

close your eyes, hold on tight

spin around, it's alright

don't you see my plans will always have you in them?

Finding Anzu on the internet is simple enough. He does it from the comfort of his bedroom, his table lamp flickering on and off at the whim of the unstable grid. 

Reading English is a skill he didn't master while he had Rishid to do it for him, so it took an hour of running searches to find a mention of her in an article in a community newspaper. 

The article says she had a minor part in a musical in a playhouse he's never heard of. Everyone in the world knows Broadway but there must be a plethora of other theatres in the city. Malik doesn't understand the appeal of dancing and acting and singing onstage in front of strangers but he supposes she might not understand why he risks his life every time he straddles his motorcycle. 

Rishid's head appears in the door after Malik's been staring at the same sentence for fifteen minutes. He missed the call to dinner.

Rishid knocks so Malik might look at him, though he sensed Rishid coming up the stairs as if there's an invisible tether between them. 'Malik.'

Malik tilts his head, eyes on the screen. 'Yes?'

'Are you coming to eat or are you going to sit there for the rest of the evening?'

Isis could say the same words and make it sound like he is being petulant, avoidant or worse. From Rishid the question is calm and sincere, a gentle prod, like he's trying to shepherd a cow from one pen to another.

'In a minute,' Malik says, closing the browser. He stiffens when Rishid enters the room and stands behind him, a heavy and looming presence. 'I said–'

'What are you doing?' Rishid mutters, reaching around Malik to grasp the mouse. He reopens the browser. The weight of his silence is more than Malik can stand. Rishid does not need his glasses to zero in on Anzu's name, and he has a memory like an elephant. Rishid's eyes bore a hole in the side of Malik's head. 'Malik?'

'I was curious.' 

'About theatre?' Rishid's voice edges toward flat. 

Malik shifts in the chair. Rishid wedges a foot against the wheel so it can't roll any further. 

'They've moved on,' Rishid says mildly. 'She's moved on.'

Everyone has but you. You're trapped by your own demons. Time to let go. Malik almost wishes he would be brutal, direct. Something his father would understand that Malik still needs after all this time. 

'Move,' Malik says, gaze averted. He shoves the chair back. 'I want to eat.'

Rishid steps away. Instantly, the suffocating pressure of his shadow vanishes. Slowly, he stands, tugging on a jacket. Rishid's eyes trail him as he leaves the room, and it feels like his back being watched by Anubis himself. 

Maps are a problem. 

Maps in English are a far more complex problem, drawing on multiple areas of relative weakness, and Malik does not have Rishid to decipher it for him. He's thousands of miles away, back in Cairo. Probably lounged in the recliner with a thermos of karkadeh, a tray of shortbreads on the reading table, Al-Jazeera playing on the television, a window cracked for the negligible breeze that Isis will come across and slam shut, citing pollution and the noise from the street—hawkers, camel touts, performers. All raucous and relentless, vying for the attention of tourists, disturbers of the peace.

Rishid can't help him. Malik has relied on him too much over the years, maybe, for tasks both simple and intricate. Isis never babied him that way. She scoffed and told him to stand on his own two feet. He'd be better off now if he'd listened to her but it's human nature to resist the advice of siblings, particularly that of a full-blooded relative.

Malik is alone in New York. Navigating the airport—the constant announcements from the loudspeaker system, the foreign signs, the bustle of people dragging suitcases and shoving past—is hard enough without considering what waits beyond it. 

Outside, the sun is blazing. Pigeons flutter across the street, a vendor is hollering that he has the hottest, softest pretzels in New York for sale. It's chaotic but Malik finds it calming the same way he finds that the crowded, frenetic streets of Cairo quieten the anxiety. 

He spreads the map between his hands. The city is built on a grid. What should be a straightforward network of streets intersecting is a disorienting mass of lines to his eyes. The landmarks mean nothing to him; they're just buzzwords he recognizes. He circled a few key spots in red, but not the motel he picked for the low price point and the claim of a central location. 

People milling through the pick-up zone sidestep him. He catches the occasional side-eye when he doesn't pick up on a cue to get out of the way. A cab honks at him when he stumbles off the curb and into its path. He scrambles back onto the pavement, his heart pounding away. 

Agitated, he crumples the map up and shoves it into his backpack, trades it for his cell phone. The reception signal is at four bars. Relief washes through him. That means the overpriced sim card he bought at the airport in Cairo under the pressure from the sales clerk is functional. Rishid's number is the first in the contact list—he'd deposited it along with Isis' ahead of time, knowing he wouldn't remember the area codes. 

Malik holds the phone to his ear. 

Rishid picks up on the third ring. 'Malik,' he says warmly. 'How was your flight?'

No hello, no how are you. A few years ago Rishid would have stumbled over himself with the formalities. Malik was master then—no more, no less. 

'I can't find it,' Malik mumbles. I can't find her goes unsaid. 'Help.'

'Help you how?' Rishid asks. The sound of a newspaper snapping open. 'I–'

A muffled protest. Then Isis is on the line. 'You insisted on going. I've never been there. Rishid's never been there. How do you expect us to help you?'

'You're right,' Malik murmurs, mostly to himself. 'You can't help me.'

Isis is silent for a moment. 'We miss you,' she says. 'When are you coming home?'

'I just got here.'

Her tone descends back into exasperation. 'Why are you there, Malik? What is it you hope to achieve? You belong here with us.'

She means with her. His pseudo-parent, his legal guardian until he came of age, the ball and chain he never asked for, but is grateful to have anyway, even at moments like this when he wants to flip her off. Rishid fits neatly into the role of brother, confidant, protector. 

'Nevermind,' Malik says, clipped. 'I'll figure it out myself.'

He hangs up on her protests. 

He only preyed on Isis' generosity a little. 

She's the one who told him to save his money in lieu of paying her rent. Instead, she asked him to contribute to the upkeep of the household—sweep the balcony, pick up groceries, feed the fish, wipe down the surfaces, water the plants, dust the broken venetians, beat the rugs. She assumed—wrongly—that he was saving to pay off the personal loan he took out for his motorcycle at an exorbitant interest rate, or a deposit for his own place to get out from under her thumb. 

Malik is content living with his siblings. They're all he has in the world with their parents dead. He enjoys their company. Being alone feels like punishment but he's never expressed that, not even to Rishid.

He held down the job at the newspaper stand just long enough to get the money he needed for a ticket and a week or two at a budget motel. He shows the cab driver a picture of the motel's sign that he printed off, says the name as clearly as he can, and he is relieved to see a nod of understanding. He watches the meter tick by at an alarming rate from the backseat, and looks out the window when he can't stand it anymore. 

It's only after stumbling his way through a conversation with the girl at the reception desk that Malik realizes he doesn't have much leftover. He has a certain amount reserved for a flight home but besides that, it's only enough to eat and maybe take a ferry ride on the East River if he's feeling adventurous. 

He does not feel adventurous. Just bone-tired as he lugs his suitcase and backpack through the humid, piss-glazed lobby and up the stairs where the air is even thicker. He is accustomed to hot weather—a dry heat that resolves with the coming of rain, heralding the wet season and the inundation of the Nile. But the heat here is stifling. When he opens the door, the absence of a ceiling fan is more devastating than the brand of kohl he's used since he was thirteen becoming insolvent. 

The room is almost bare—there's a bed, a desk with a wad of napkins folded under a leg, a mini fridge, and a tiny television that looks as if it's about to break free of the wall bracket. The connecting bathroom is dingy with light-repulsing mahogany wood cabinetry, a leaking showerhead, and glass shower panels stained by hard water. The sink is lined with soap scum that someone's tried to scrub away with steel wool, leaving behind an erratic pattern. The toilet lid is down, and Malik decides he'll piss in the shower. A cockroach crawls over the tattered wicker hamper. 

He closes the door, takes a breath, and slides his backpack off. 

For the second time in a day, Malik asks a stranger on the street for directions. His wish is granted again when he taps a woman on the shoulder. She turns, a red-faced wailing toddler on her hip, and smiles at him. 

'Are you lost?' she asks, glancing at the map once again in his hand. 

'Yes,' he answers. His English is thick, accented, painful to his ears. 'I need to get—here?' Fingertip to a street where the Provincetown Playhouse is located. 'To the theatre. For my friend. She's—' he rummages for the word, bordering on panicked— 'performing. There. Today.'

Anzu also does not know he's here but this woman doesn't need to be privy to that fact. He blinks at her, hoping his expression is placid and clueless. Help me, lady. I'm just a stranger in a strange land. He's suspicious of men in his own country; he can't fathom what a woman in the busiest city on the eastern seaboard might think of a man in a midriff asking her where to find a theatre.

The woman buys whatever he's selling. She nods and tilts her head to the left. 'That way. You need to get on the subway and ride about six stops.' 

He wandered aimlessly from the motel in the wrong direction, then. He tries to smile with gratitude but it feels like a grimace stretching his lips thin. 'Thank you.'

'No problem,' she replies, warm as the sun beating down on his back. 'I hope your friend breaks a leg.'

Malik is startled. 'What?'

'It means wishing someone good luck before they get on stage.' She pauses and raises an eyebrow. The child squeals, yanking a fistful of her hair. 'You haven't heard the phrase before?'

He snorts out a laugh. 'Never.'

'You're welcome,' the woman giggles, before attending to her still-screaming child, smoothing his curly, sweat-dampened hair off his face. 'Enjoy New York.'

The facade is red-brick and garish. No street appeal. It could pass for the front of an ice cream shop or a convenience store stuck in the last century. As soon as he steps foot onto the pavement, he wonders how any production taking place here earned even a cursory mention in a news article of any kind. It's limp and depressing like a hyaena without teeth, just a wide crushing maw with propped open doors and a rent-a-cop stationed out front. 

Malik mislikes the place. Something in his gut tells him the place is haunted or at least the scene of a murder at one time or another. Maybe a mass clown suicide. He refuses to go inside—not even to watch her act or dance or throw knives or direct the acrobatics of fleas or whatever it is multidisciplinary artists do. He sits on the curb instead, watchful. 

Thirty minutes later, people begin flocking inside the building. Malik almost gets stepped on more than once and glared at for sitting in a thoroughfare, so he shuffles to the corner of the street. 

He waits to catch a glance of Anzu. She's likely in the building already and has been since this morning. Practicing and preparing and primping herself. He passes the time wondering what makeup she buys, how she might put it on. If she prefers eyeliner to mascara or uses both together. If she washes her brushes between uses like Isis or only wipes them down when it occurs to her once or twice a year. If she uses a compact or a bathroom mirror, if she avoids her reflection from certain angles like he does. 

It's an hour before people file out of the theatre. He sits up straighter, scanning each face. A teenager makes intense, awkward eye-contact with him. He looks away until he can't feel the stare. 

When the last person has trickled out, he slumps. No sign of her.

The dark is setting in by the time the door opens and she steps out into the night with a flushed face and a candy-red handbag slung over her shoulder. She exits with three other girls, giggling amongst themselves. They go one way and she goes the other, calling out a goodbye. 

Malik has relocated across the street. He'd gotten hungry enough to purchase a floppy, undercooked piece of pizza with wrinkled olives and burnt cheese. He freezes, half a mouthful of chewed dough stagnating on his tongue. He spits it out and dumps the slice in the bin before he follows, shadowing her steps. 

At no point did he stop to consider that he is effectively stalking her. He looked her up on the internet, pinpointed her whereabouts, and flew to another country without an objective besides finding her. He didn't plan beyond that, didn't focus on anything except the desperation to be in her orbit.

Then what? Say hello and goodbye? 

Is that what he came here for?

He slows his pace, considering. She's a few metres ahead, humming to herself as she digs through her purse for a credit card. Her nails—short, painted with mauve polish—clack against the plastic. He's been in her head. He knows unequivocally that it is not in her nature to assume the worst in people. That's a trait uniquely his own. She's the type to welcome old friends with open arms.

Was he her friend, or just someone who controlled her mind and used her against the people who actually matter to her?

He swallows down the swell of nausea in his throat. He'll lose his nerve if he waits much longer.

'Anzu!'

The intention was to catch her attention by calling out, but it leaves his mouth in a shout, high and overwrought, like he's summoning help for a grievous injury sustained from being mowed down by a car.

She pauses and pivots. Her eyes squint through the dark, her mouth downturned in concentration. Then they widen in recognition. A smile leaps to her lips.

'Malik?!'

He offers his most reassuring smile in turn. 'I thought that was you.'

Better not to lead with the fact that he is here—in New York—just for her.

She scampers over, shoving her wallet bag in her bag. Her arms envelope him in an embrace.

'What are you doing here?' she asks, laughing against his shoulder. 'I thought you moved back to Egypt?'

The answer, he thinks, is easy. He's here for one reason.

She steps back. He releases her, overcome by the scent of her conditioner. It smells like bergamot, maybe. Something flowery but grounded. It suits her.

'Just in the neighborhood,' he says, tone lilting up in the hope he doesn't sound guilty. Her smile doesn't falter but there's a questioning glint in her eyes. 'I'm on a sabbatical.'

Anzu smothers another laugh. 'I bet your sister's not happy.'

'No,' Malik says, grinning. 'She isn't.' A beat of silence passes, and he panics, obsessed with filling it. 'You look—you look well?'

'Are you asking or telling?'

Malik flounders. 'I mean, you look good. Healthy.' That could be offensive, he realizes too late. Taken any number of ways. He purses his lips. 'I didn't mean that in a—'

'Malik,' Anzu says gently. She tilts her head in the direction she'd been heading. 'Do you want to catch up over a coffee?'

She may as well be asking if he wants to go on an all-expenses paid trip to the Maldives, or if he would be interested in having his loan paid off entirely with no strings attached. 

'Yes.'

She talks as much as he remembers. 

Inside her head, it was all white noise, the chatter of her friends. Half the things that crossed her mind never left her mouth. She was shyer then. More anxious about judgment from Jounouchi and Honda, maybe. Parsing through her memories, Malik discovered she confessed all of her fears to Yugi. She confided in her mother about her dreams and the sacrifices it would take to get where she wanted to go. Her father would weigh in when she slipped into his office and sought reassurance. He'd squeeze her shoulder, drop a kiss on her forehead, and Malik has never related to anything less in his life.

'So in the end, she literally broke a leg. Then I got the part. It's only a small role but I'm trying to add whatever I can to my resume,' Anzu says, flushed by the glee in her tone at the misfortune of her castmate. 'I feel for her but opportunities like that don't come up that often, you know? '

He doesn't know. He can find his way around a motorcycle blindfolded and with mitts on his hands, but he doesn't possess a shred of knowledge about show business. 

'It wasn't your fault,' he says. 'She's the one who fell off a balcony.'

'I mean, it was snowing. Anyone could have fallen.'

'She was sitting on the railing, Anzu.'

She blanches. 'She drank a lot of Baileys that night. I could have stopped her.'

'You're friends with her?' Malik asks. 

The concept intrigues him: he has none. He has Rishid, and he has Isis. 

Anzu taps her chin. 'Acquaintances is probably a better way to describe it, but I'd consider us friends.'

'You make friends easily,' Malik points out. 'Everywhere you go.'

'And you make enemies,' Anzu teases. Her grin fades when she notices that his posture has tightened. 'That was a joke. Malik, I'm sorry—'

Malik stares across at her. 'It's true.'

She seems taken aback by the intensity of the eye contact. But she holds to it. 'Still, I didn't mean that at all. It was insensitive of me.'

'It's fine. I probably deserve it,' he says, chuckling. 'I was a pretty shitty person back then.'

Malik's mug went lukewarm a while ago. He peers down at his reflection in the black liquid. He can see her, too, gazing at him appraisingly, trying to get the measure of him. She probably didn't expect that he would be so upfront. Or maybe it's his salient absence of social skills that confounds her. He'd protest that he was literally raised in a hole in the ground but that doesn't win him any points in society and it won't with her. 

'I don't hold any of that against you,' Anzu murmurs. At that, he does look up sharply. 'I just want you to know. Who you were isn't who you are. That goes for all of us.' Her hands are clasped together, a gesture that he translates loud and clear. She's hiding things, too. 'And you're in New York,' she adds with a grin. 'Haven't you heard? Anything can happen here. Dreams come true.'

He doesn't put stock in hope. But in her, he can find it in himself to stop being so faithless. 

Malik smirks. 'My only dream is a motel without cockroaches.'

Her eyes widen. 'What?'

'Oh, my god,' she mutters. 'It's worse than I thought.' She covers her mouth with a hand to stifle a gasp. 'Is that mold in the cornices?'

He stifles a laugh. The lack of decorum is refreshing. He expected a level of politeness from her at the state of his lodgings.

Malik shrugs. 'Could be.' He closes the door behind them. There's barely room to turn around in here, let alone have a visitor.  'I haven't slept in here yet,' he admits. 'But I'm guessing there's roaches.'

Anzu glances at him. 'What do you mean, you haven't slept in here yet?'

'I only got in this morning.'

'From Egypt?'

'Yeah,' he says, dumping his bag on the bed. Belatedly, he wonders about bedbugs. Too late—his suitcase has been open and his clothes exposed for the last few hours. Itching is likely to be in his future. 'Long flight. I slept on the plane. They say jetlag is rough so my bedtime could be whenever.'

Anzu gingerly opens the bathroom door and peeks inside. 'Oh,' she says grimly. 'You should wear flip-flops in here. The floor...looks....' She closes the door. 'Gross.'

Malik raises an eyebrow. 'Flip-flops?'

'Shoes for the shower,' she says, pointing at her feet. She's wearing sandals, sensible and utilitarian.  'Unless you want to get athlete's foot.'

He echoes, 'Athlete's foot?'

'Foot fungus, Malik.' 

He makes a mental note to buy the pair of shoes that will prevent fungi spores sprouting between his toes. 'Thanks.'

She looks around for somewhere safe to sit. With no options, she wisely chooses to remain standing with her hands tucked into her pockets. Her hair seems longer than the last time he saw her at the airport, and perhaps a shade darker. A deeper brown that reminds him of the rich mud on the banks of the Nile. He catches himself staring but she's still familiarizing herself with the room so it goes unnoticed. 

'So,' she ventures, 'what are you planning to do while you're here?'

'See the sights,' he says. 'Usual tourist stuff.'

'Right,' Anzu says. 'And how's your English?'

Abysmal. 'Sufficient.'

'I can show you around,' she offers. 'My English is pretty good. I've lived here long enough and I studied it for a few years in Japan.'

Their gazes hold for a moment too long. The prospect of being guided around New York by the girl whose pull dragged him halfway around the world like an industrial magnet is overwhelming. 

'There's a vending machine,' he mutters, the words rushed and clumped together, hanging in the air. Before he can apologise for being a woeful host, he slips out the door and immediately leans back against it when it's a barrier between them. 

His diet Coke is half-finished on the windowsill, still bubbling when he falls into a deep, tranquil sleep. He doesn't dream and when his eyes open to take in the sunlight, he realizes that there is nothing for him to dream about. Home is a far-off concept—a prison, his siblings the sentinels. 

By the time he orients himself to time and space, he recalls, with the heels of his palms pressed to his eyes, that he is meant to meet Anzu at eight. A lively morning run was her idea of pre-emptively getting ahead of the jetlag. A quick check of his arms and wrists, calves and thighs reveals no bite marks from any insects inhabiting the bed and linen. 

He digs through the suitcase for any clothing suitable for exercise. A washed-out black shirt and a pair of tan cargo shorts that Isis bought for him from the bazaar are the only feasible options. He brought a singular pair of worn work boots he's been traipsing around in for the last two years, back and forth to the university campus and the newspaper stand three nights a week. They're not made for running but they're all he has. He double-knots the laces and uses a thick pair of woollen socks in case of blisters.

Malik can't remember the last time he broke a sweat. But when Anzu was poised to leave the motel room and looked at him hopefully, extending an olive branch that isn't her burden to begin with, he couldn't say no. She tapped her number into his phone and he'd fallen asleep three minutes after she left. 

If he could say no to anything—mostly his own impulses—he wouldn't be here. No wonder he couldn't deny her, either. 

He finds himself lost on a street corner. He takes out his phone and searches for her name. 

'Hello?' she asks, picking up after the second ring. 'It's Malik, right?'

'Yes,' Malik says sullenly. 'I don't know where I am.'

'What can you see? Any landmarks?'

He glances around. 'Some traffic lights.'

'You're going to have to be more specific,' Anzu says. He can hear the tapping of her footsteps on pavement over the line. 'What else?'

Malik heaves a sigh. 'A pizza joint. A bunch of pigeons. Some guy asleep under a tarp.'

Anzu giggles. 'So you could be anywhere in New York. That's really helpful.'

'I'd rather be in bed,' he says, though it's not true. He'll work himself into a frenzied sweat if it means he can be near her. 

'You're already up,' Anzu points out. 'Find the nearest street sign and tell me the number. I'll come get you. You can't be that far.'

After, he is facedown on the table at Starbucks. Anzu is across from him, sipping a caramel macchiato with the fresh, chipper expression of a person who did not just run three miles a good two lengths ahead of him while chirping away, pointing out places of interest and giving him a rundown of the area's history.

'Water,' he croaks, pushing aside the espresso she ordered him. 'I'm dehydrated enough.'

'Okay.' Anzu grins and pushes herself up, heading for the pickup counter. She returns with a jug of cold water and a plastic cup that she fills to the brim and slides towards him. 'Are you alright?'

'Yeah, as long as we don't do that again,' Malik mutters, lifting his head long enough to swallow down the water. He dips his fingers into the jug and wipes water across his overheated face, revulsion crawling over his skin at the sensation of his wet hair plastered to his forehead. 'Do you do that every day?'

'Most days.'

'And then you perform for an hour...how many times a week?'

'Usually just twice. It's not too bad. And I take dance classes, too.'

Malik's head falls back to his folded arms. 'Do you even sleep?'

'Nobody here sleeps. Haven't you heard?' His eyes widen in alarm until she starts laughing. 'It's just a saying. You should see your face.'

'That's not nice,' Malik mumbles. He wonders how many times people have said worse about him behind his back over the years.

Isis' voice is more grating upside down. Malik's head is almost touching the carpet. There's a chalk-white stain the shape of the African continent. He touches it with a finger, intrigued. His feet are hooked under the intricate iron spirals of the headboard, keeping him from crashing onto his head. 

'It's been six days,' she's saying, her usually level tone giving way to something else, something that's been simmering. 'Haven't you had enough? Aren't you bored?'

'Enough?' he repeats. 'I've barely gotten over the jetlag.'

He can hear what she doesn't say aloud: The longest anything has ever held your attention is eight days. 

'If you come home now, I'll pay off that loan. And the interest.' 

The bait is tempting. He hates debt. But he hates the feeling of owing his sister more. Even if she insists he doesn't have to pay her back, he'll feel like he has to. And she'll have cannon fodder to pull out on him the next time they argue, which will be twenty minutes after he walks through the door.

In the background, he hears Rishid ask, 'Is that Malik?'

Isis shushes him. 'Well?'

'Thanks,' Malik says, 'but no thanks. Put Rishid on.'

A scoff of disbelief. The phone is passed off to Rishid. 

'Can you believe him?' Isis says in the far distance, rattling pots and pans. She'll rearrange the entire cabinet before the night is out. 

Rishid says quietly, 'It's quiet without you around.'

'Sounds like Isis wants to strangle me,' Malik comments. 

'We worry about you,' Rishid retorts, and the flinty quality of his tone is enough to make Malik flinch. It's a rebuke. 

'I'm old enough to look after myself.'

'That's not in question.'

Malik blows a strand of hair away from his face. 'Then what is?'

'Your choices.'

The blood rushing to his head is more than gravity. He hangs up without warning and shoves the phone under the bed.

'How did you get fit so fast?' Anzu huffs out between labored breaths, hands on her knees. 'Did you even break a sweat?' She's doubled over next to the water fountain. For once Malik is the one who looks like he's been languishing on a couch all morning under air conditioning. 'Is that a boy thing?'

He brushes his hair back behind his ears, shrugging. 'Could be. Maybe it's just my genes.' 

He doesn't mention the fact that he's been slipping out to run at night because he still has trouble sleeping even with Anzu forcing him out the door most mornings by 6AM. The first mile taken at a jog is painful, every step an opportunity to turn tail back to the motel. But into the second mile he hits his stride and the static in his brain fizzles out. The night air is cool and soothing, and anyone on the street past midnight is in a hurry to get home, disinterested in making eye-contact or staring at his coloring. It's grown on him. 

'You know,' Anzu says, 'I know some buildings with cheaper rent than whatever you're paying at that...place.'

'It's called the Liberty Lodge Motel, thanks.'

'Have you got a job yet?'

Malik averts his gaze when she grins. 'Working on it.'

'Did you even print your resume at the library?'

'I meant to.'

Anzu rolls her eyes and stretches her arms over her head. A joint pops. 'I could put in a word for you at the diner.'

Malik looks at her incredulously. 'You're a waitress?'

It's a testament to her disposition that she takes no offence. 'Duh,' she says. 'I worked as a waitress in Japan while I was in high school, too. The money here isn't as good and the things you have to do for tips can really suck, but...flexible shifts. And it beats sitting in an office.'

Malik is flashing through every American movie he's ever seen, fishing for the outfit that waitresses wear while they chew gum and pour black coffee. Claw clips, skirts, frills, capped sleeves, aprons cinched at the waist. 

'Right,' he says slowly. 'And what would I be? The janitor?'

Anzu scoffs. 'They earn decent money. But no, not the janitor. I could see you flipping burgers.'

Malik makes a face. 'I don't like meat. And doesn't my English need to be good for that?' 

Anzu cocks her head. 'Not if you're only washing dishes.'

His wallet is open, a stack of coins on the floor. He thumbs through the notes with the phone held between his ear and shoulder, straining the tendons on the other side of his neck. For once, Rishid picked up the landline.

'Didn't think I'd make it this long?' he says. A smirk tugs at his lips. It feels foreign on his features, like it was made for someone else. 

'We're proud of you,' Rishid says. 

It's always the royal we, never I. As far as Malik knows, his siblings share a telepathic link, the same opinions on most topics. He puts it down to similar ages, similar temperaments—they're both calm, reserved, deliberate. Malik got every thread of impulsivity and tempestuousness in their genes. The only difference between Rishid and Isis is how they express themselves—Rishid is more tactful, considerate of his feelings. Isis is like a tropical stormfront when provoked, wild, unpredictable. When Anzu said she was envious of his sister's poise, Malik actually laughed. If only Anzu heard about Isis' reaction after she entrusted Obelisk to Kaiba and he flatly refused to return it. Two museum windows lost their lives that day.

Malik is counting the money in his head when Rishid broaches the obvious topic: 'Do you have a date in mind yet?'

Soon, he thinks, unless I land a job.

'Yeah,' Malik says absently, stuffing the notes back into the wallet. 'When I'm ready.'

Rishid's teeth grinding together is audible. 

It's become a habit for him to hang around and wait for her—whether she's working, performing, or taking a class at the studio. He knows all her spots. The first few times he asked if he could, she was surprised. But she is the closest thing to familiar that he has, and he can't tell if she feels the same. But he had his theories. 

Sharing brainspace with someone will do that to you, he thinks as he turns the collar of his coat up against the biting wind. It makes a person irresistable, like a moth to the flame. He's sure he could find her anywhere in this city by the pull he feels alone.

When the door clangs and Anzu steps onto the street, she smiles. She expects him now. It's as close to a routine as he's developed in the last two weeks—he wakes, they run, he goes back to bed while she lives her ordinary citizen life, and he emerges at some point in the afternoon to make a beeline to her again. Rinse, lather, repeat. It's much the same life he was living in Egypt, just without the exercise and keeping the company of a girl. 

'Did you bring them?' she asks, linking her arm with his.

He glances down at it. The physical contact is new but not unwelcome. It still makes him rigid.

He lifts his other shoulder to gesture at the bag packed with his resumes. 'Yeah. Fifteen copies.'

'Perfect,' Anzu says, tugging him toward the subway. 'Let's stop at my work first. I think my boss will like you. You're pretty.'

The manager looks him up and down with a critical eye but her voice is warmer than syrup when she asks how much English he speaks.

'I understand some,' he says, stilted, tongue thick around the words. 'Enough. To get by.' Anzu nudges the back of his foot with the toe of her shoe. He clears his throat. 'And I can get—better. Take lessons.'

'I can teach him,' Anzu offers. Her English is perfect: crystal-clear with just a hint of her natural accent.

'I do need a new dish hand,' the manager says thoughtfully, fanning herself with his resume. 'You mind scrubbing?'

Malik stares blankly for a moment. 'Like—' He makes the motion he's familiar with: Isis with her sleeves rolled to the elbow, her furious scraping and degreasing and rinsing over a sink of soapy hot water, blue detergent streaks across the counter. 'That?'

The manager nods. 'If you're available, you could start tomorrow morning. The cooks have been taking turns doing the dishes. They keep bitching about it. I'm worried one of them is going to quit. So, what do you say?'

Malik looks to Anzu—for guidance or reassurance, he doesn't know. 'Yes?' 

The manager beams. 'You'll need full length black pants and you can wear whatever shirt you want.'

Anzu waits until the manager is out of earshot to lean over. Her lips are close to his ear; he can feel her breath, warm and a hint of mint gum. 'We're going shopping.'

Malik, without realizing he'd instinctively leaned back into her, straightens. He's hot around the ears.  'I have pants.'

'Not the kind she's talking about. Yours are tan and you wear the same pair almost every day, Malik.'

'I have multiple pairs,' he says defensively. 'I do wash them.'

'You know,' Anzu says conversationally, 'I haven't seen you use a washing machine yet.'

The world was narrow before. Now it's a pinpoint that consists of Anzu. 

Malik's training is comically brief. The short-order cook's teaching method involves grunting and pointing, and the occasional 'use this one, not that one' when he was indicating detergents and which scrubbing brushes Malik is forbidden from using. He's allowed to use one clump of steel wool. Everything else is off limits.

He rolls his eyes when the cook's back is turned. Anzu, passing by with a tray of milkshakes—bright, swirling whites and pinks—flicks his shoulder reproachfully. 

'You should be polite,' she cautions. 'He cooks what you're eating for lunch.'

'I have no intention of eating here,' Malik says tartly, and that lasts all of a day when he realizes how much effort it is to leave the diner, wander down the street in search of something that doesn't offend his palate, and how fast a thirty-minute break passes. 

For the first week, their shifts rarely cross over. Sometimes Anzu is on the open shift because of her evening commitments, and they only see each other as Malik is striding through the door, tying his hair back. He sees her most mornings for their run, but he doesn't count it.

He gets his first paycheck at the end of the second week. He doesn't know how much it is in Egyptian pounds but it's a good, round number. He spends most of it on a security deposit for a studio apartment in a building a few blocks from Anzu's place. Like an adult, he uses the pitiful remaining amount for groceries, a six pack of Heineken, and an emergency packet of Marlboros.

'You know, the idea is to save some,' Anzu points out, peering over his shoulder when he opens his wallet to pay for a pizza and finds it empty. She is his first visitor and he bites down the embarrassment when she nudges him aside and hands a few bills to the delivery boy. 'You know, for a rainy day?'

He watches as she makes herself comfortable on the threadworn couch he'd bought from the person who lived here last. She opens the box and folds a slice in half, offering it to him. 

'It's vegetarian,' she says.

It never rains in Egypt, he thinks. 

'You should come watch,' Anzu suggests. 'Aren't you curious about it?'

'I've seen you dance.'

She's commandeered his living room floor to perform for him. He's familiar with it.

'It's not just dancing.'

Malik raises a brow. 'What else?'

'Acting,' she says, aghast. 'Haven't you ever seen a play before?'

Isis watched The Sound of Music once. Malik happened to be in the same room at the time. He glimpsed a West Side Story poster in Anzu's soul room when he'd hijacked her mind.

'No.'

'I can get you a free ticket. You're going.'

Malik inspects his hands. The first few days elbow-deep in hot water were brutal on his skin, leaving them wrinkled for hours after drying. He picked up a pair of gloves after the fifth shift at Anzu's insistence. 

He glances at her. 'When? And throw in popcorn, or I'm not going.'

It's a lie and they both know it.

She smiles. 'Do the Tuesday showing. We can have dinner after.'

Malik casts his eyes at the ceiling. 'Isn't that a date?'

'Sure,' she agrees. 'A friend date.'

It's a lie, but he isn't ready to call her out yet. 

She delivers on her promise: he has a tub of buttered popcorn that melts on his tongue and a seat in the third row. There's maybe a hundred people in the audience. The curtains part and a followspot creaks at the hinges, tearing across the stage to land on a girl. 

Anzu has briefed him on the story twice. He knows it more or less. Her part is relatively minor but she doesn't care. Being involved in the development of the production from start to finish is what she values most, she says.

Malik calls bullshit. When it's her turn, he can see her eyes glint from where he sits in the audience. It's joy. He recognizes it, feels it thrum under his skin the way the motorcycle's engine did the first time he sat astride it. The popcorn goes untouched every time she takes the stage.

'You didn't tell me you were good,' he says afterwards, accusingly. Anzu is leaning against the brick wall next to him, guzzling a Gatorade. Her makeup is mostly intact but some of her foundation has leaked with her sweat, and her eyeliner has smudged under her lower eyelids. Personally, Malik only lines his upper lid. 

'Sorry.' She pops the top of the bottle. He notices the exhilaration of performing is still written across her face. 

'Are you?' he asks. 

'No. ' She smiles. 'Thank you for coming, Malik.'

Malik grins back. 'It wasn't the worst thing.'

She rolls her eyes good-naturedly. She sidesteps his barbs every time—effortless, an immunity to him. It's part of the strange give-and-take of their relationship, the way they know each other. He chalks it up to having occupied her brain. Maybe he left a fragment of himself inside her, a souvenir. He took parts of her with him when he left, or he would not be here.

'Anyway.' Anzu slides the bottle into her backpack and reaches for his hand. Her fingers curl around his wrist, her grip assured and intentional. 'Let's have dinner and drinks.'

Never in his wildest dreams sitting at his desk in Cairo, searching for Anzu on the internet, did he think he'd be here, standing across from her and being invited to a meal. It's not the first time they've eaten together but it's different to grabbing breakfast burritos or a quick bite when their shifts align. 

She only has one strawberry daiquiri, takes sips of it between bites of her burger. She twirls the fries before she puts them in her mouth—no ketchup, no salt. The food should absorb the alcohol. Malik takes swigs of his beer when there's a lapse in the conversation. As usual, he lets her do most of the talking. He has nothing of interest to say. If she was interested about the weather in Egypt or the political climate, he could lecture her, put her right to sleep. 

She orders dessert, too: peach cobbler. When she offers him a spoonful, he wants to refuse. Predictably, he opens his mouth and leans over. The spoon clacks the back of his molars and he swallows the overly sweet mixture of fruit and crust. The vanilla ice cream, he does like. He draws back to lick his lips. Anzu polishes off the rest of the cobbler, her lids half-lidded in either delight or inebriation, he doesn't know. 

By the end of the meal, despite all the food, she's giggling like she's in possession of a winning lottery ticket. She ignores his attempt to pay for their food, shoves a wad of cash at the waiter and tells him to keep the tip. It's a hundred dollar bill, Malik notes as Anzu holds out a hand to him. Her bracelets clatter, her eyes round and hopeful. He hesitates a moment and she grasps him tighter. 

He's dragged from the restaurant out onto the street where she keeps hold of his hand. It's tight, the link between them. His fingers are slick with sweat but she either doesn't notice or she doesn't care. A flickering streetlamp at the subway entrance makes the necklace at her throat glimmer when she turns to him, looking thoughtful.

'Oh, you haven't been to my place, yet,' she says, half a statement, half an invitation. 'Have you?'

'No,' Malik mumbles. 

'Do you want to?' Anzu asks. 'There's a lot of pink but I think it's charming, in its own way.'

Malik searches her face—for a trick, for a lie. He finds none. Just her usual honesty and what he's been looking for since Atem left this life: the truth. 

'Yes.'

'You know,' Anzu remarks as she slides her key into the lock, 'there's a certain way this goes. In the movies and on TV, I mean.'

Malik steps into her space. He feels out of place amongst the pink paisley curtains, the inflatable furniture, the organised set of colored pens and pencils on her desk. His throat is constricted by the cuff and even the ones on his wrists and upper arms feel like shackles instead of jewellery. He took them off to get through customs and he'll paddle home in a canoe before he does it again. 

'What do you mean?' he asks, brushing his fingers over a white wool scarf hanging on the back of the chair. 

'Come on, Malik.' Anzu, to her credit, doesn't kick the pile of dirty laundry on the floor under the bed. She glances down at it, acknowledges its existence, but her eyes pull right back up to his. 'I know your upbringing wasn't...' She flounders for the word, lips pursed.

Malik smirks. 'Normal?'

Anzu holds up her hands. 'You said it, not me. But yes, your upbringing wasn't...traditional. I know you watch TV, even if it's just the news. Everyone does.'

He has the television playing at a low volume whenever he's at home. It fills in the missing silence from his siblings. 'So?'

Anzu mock-sighs. 'So you know what it means when a girl invites you to her place late at night.' She pauses. 'Right?'

If Malik's throat felt tight before, now it's on fire. 

'Well?' she presses, unbuttoning her coat. She lays it on the back of the chair over the scarf, close enough now that he can feel the warmth radiating from her body. 'Or do I have to spell it out for you?'

'Maybe.' Malik's gaze drops. She curls her fingers under his chin, pushes it level with hers again. 'Anzu, I—' 

'You don't have to,' she cuts in. Her tone is kind, understanding. She offers him a reassuring smile. 'I think you like me, though.'

If only she knew the half of it—that he pursued her because in all his years of attempting to lead a normal life, she was the only thing that made sense. 

'I do.' He inches in, because it seems like the right thing to do. She bridges the remaining gap and her lips close over his, light and questioning. She knows what she's doing and he does not. He rests a hand on her waist tentatively and she presses herself to him. Her teeth sink into his lower lip. He gasps, opens his mouth. 

Anzu draws back. 'Have you kissed someone before?' she murmurs. 

Malik shakes his head, as much as he can with their noses touching.

'Do you want to?'

He stares at her. Does a lion want to tear into the flesh of a gazelle? Does a rat in the subway station want to pilfer the remains of a dropped hot dog? 

'Yes,' he says with a certainty he hasn't felt since the day he told Atem to do whatever it took, even if it meant his own demise. 

'I didn't give you that key to abuse it,' he tells her one morning a few weeks later when she has let herself into his studio and made herself comfortable on the couch. He closes the door, sighing. 'You're meant to let me know you're coming by. You're the one who called me rude when I—'

He pauses to take stock of the situation. Anzu hasn't made eye-contact with him yet. Her satchel is still slung over her shoulder. She's focused on papers strewn across the coffee table they thrifted a week ago. They'd carried it home, awkwardly turning around corners and laughing when Malik tripped on a curb and almost fell into a shrub. 

'Anzu?'

'What is this?' she asks, refusing to look at him. Her shoulders are trembling. 

He rounds the back of the couch, squinting. His stomach churns when he recognizes them. 

The article he used to find her. Directions to the theatre. All printed off because he was hopeless with directions and he wanted something he could touch, something physical to remind him why he was here. He'd slipped them into the front pocket of his suitcase after he signed the lease for the studio, knowing at some point she might visit. It hadn't occurred to him to throw them out. 

He would give anything to once more see the burning hatred in her eyes.

This is what crosses Malik's mind as the steel toe of a boot sinks into the spongey, vulnerable cavity under his ribs. He coughs out a protest but he has found a soft landing in thinking about Anzu's face. The memory of her outrage is a comfort. His eyes fall shut as his assailants mutter amongst themselves before their footsteps recede into the bedlam of New York's noise pollution.

He rolls onto his side. 

I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to see you. I don't want to be with you. 

Bile teases the back of his throat. 

It's only been a month since he saw her. She could have packed her shit and been gone with the turn of the spring. Back to Japan. Maybe a new adventure in London, Berlin, Paris. She's a quick study of language and makes friends on the spot. She could disappear if she wanted to. Something tells him she hasn't. 

She's still in the city somewhere, he thinks, cracking an eye open. He can feel it. If she left, her gravitational pull would tug at him, plant him in some new place. 

He spits up a glob of blood-tinged spit. Time to curb the accent and double-down on his Americanisms. 

Later over the bathroom sink, he takes scissors to his hair and thins out the heavy layers that hang in front of his face. He considers dropping by the drug store for brown hair dye. If he fits in a little more, he could pass for ethnically ambiguous. That might stop the unwanted attention when he slips into Arabic in the street.

The bruise nestled between his ribs has settled to a dull throb. 

As pieces of hair drop to the porcelain, he thinks back to their last conversation. How scandalized she'd looked as she glanced back at him once before storming from the studio. 

There's work to be done.