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All The Bells At Once
i. The Proposal That Was Two Proposals
It was a Monday evening in the bedroom.
This was the part Hong would later remember most clearly—not the kitchen, or the small jewelry box on his nightstand, or the way Nut had pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pocket at the exact same time Hong had reached into the drawer of the bedside table—but the way the evening light had come in through the curtain. It was about six-thirty. They had eaten an early dinner. They had been sitting on the bed talking about nothing in particular when the conversation had, gradually, stopped being about nothing, and Hong, who had been quietly working up to this for a couple of weeks, said his name.
“Nut.”
And Nut, at exactly the same time, said his.
“Hong.”
A small silence.
“You go,” Hong said.
“No, you go.”
“You were saying my name.”
“You were saying mine.”
“Mine first.”
“It was the same time.”
“It was—okay, fine, it was the same time.”
Hong looked at him. Nut was sitting cross-legged on the bed in his soft sleeping pants with his hair slightly damp from the shower, looking up at him with an expression that was—Hong only now registered—exactly the expression Hong probably had on his own face. The careful one. The one that was trying to be casual but was, transparently, not.
A small awful suspicion crept over Hong.
“Nut.”
“Yes.”
“What were you about to say.”
“What were you about to say.”
“I asked first.”
“You did not. We asked at the same time. I have evidence.”
“Nut.”
“Hong.”
“…You go first.”
“You go first.”
“Together?”
“Together.”
A pause. They looked at each other across the duvet. Hong, who was sitting on his knees, suddenly became very aware that his own hand had—without his conscious decision—already slid sideways toward the drawer of the bedside table. He noticed Nut’s hand was, simultaneously, halfway into the pocket of his sleeping pants.
“Nut.”
“Mm.”
“On three.”
“Okay.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three—”
They both said it.
Or—they both tried to say it. Hong said will you marry me at the same time Nut said I would like us to get married, and the words came out of their mouths overlapping in the small bedroom in the evening light, and for one extremely long second neither of them did anything at all.
Then Hong, very slowly, said, “Did we just—”
“Yes.”
“At the same time—”
“Yes.”
“Nut.”
“Yes.”
“You—what is in your pocket.”
Nut pulled it out. It was a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it. It was, Hong saw—having to move closer to look—a flower. A small pressed flower. A coral-pink rose, dried and flattened, the kind of pink that was between coral and pink and that Nut had once said, in Hong’s kitchen on a different October evening almost two years ago, meant both desire and gratitude and that he had not been able to choose between.
Pressed onto the paper, beside the flower, was a small piece of writing. Nut’s handwriting. It said, in small careful letters, Will you marry me, Hong.
No question mark.
Hong stared at it.
Then he turned around—slowly, like he was underwater—and opened the drawer of the bedside table, and took out the small velvet box he had been hiding behind his books for a little over two weeks, and turned back around, and opened it.
Inside was a ring. A simple one. Gold, plain, the band slightly wider than usual because Hong had spent an actual hour at the jeweler’s a couple of weeks ago trying to imagine Nut’s hand and had decided that Nut’s fingers, which were long and graceful and surprisingly strong from years of trimming stems, would suit something with a little weight.
Nut, looking at it, stopped breathing for a second.
“You—” he said.
“Yes.”
“Hong.”
“Yes.”
“You got me—you got me a ring.”
“Yes.”
“And I got you—Hong, I got you a flower.”
“It’s a beautiful flower.”
“It is an insufficient flower—”
“Nut.”
“It is—Hong, I am a florist. I am literally a florist. I should have done—I should have—I made you a piece of paper. I made you paper. This is—Hong, you bought a ring. From a real jewelry store. With money. While I was at—while I was at the—”
“Nut.”
“I am—I am embarrassed.”
“Nut, please stop.”
“I am very embarrassed—”
“Nut.”
Hong put the open ring box down on the duvet. He took the piece of paper, very gently, out of Nut’s hand. He smoothed it. He read it again. The pressed flower was, Hong now saw on closer inspection, attached to the paper with the tiniest amount of clear tape on its stem. The lettering was in pencil. Nut had erased and rewritten the sentence—Hong could see the small smudge marks—at least twice.
“Nut.”
“What.”
“How long have you been carrying this around.”
A pause.
“…Three weeks.”
“All this time.”
“I was—I was waiting for the right time.”
“You have been carrying this folded in your pocket all this time.”
“Yes.”
“While walking around. While at work. While—while sitting across from me at breakfast and pretending to be normal—”
“Yes.”
“Nut.”
“I—I know.”
“And how long have you been—how long have you been planning this.”
“…Since the canal.”
“What canal.”
“The day we went to the market. Three Mondays ago. I have—I started thinking about it the next morning.”
Hong stared at him.
“Nut. I bought this ring three days after that walk.”
A small silence.
“Hong.”
“Yes.”
“We are—we are not subtle, are we.”
“No. Apparently not.”
“All right.”
“All right.”
“Hong.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Yes what.”
“Yes. To the question. The one you said three seconds before I said mine. Yes.”
“Oh.”
“Was—was that not clear.”
“It was—I was—I was about to ask you the same.”
“Yes also.”
“Yes also?”
“Yes also. Yes. Yes, Hong, I would marry you, I—I made you a flower, did you not read it—”
“I read it.”
“It is a yes.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
They sat there, on the duvet, both saying yes to each other for what was probably an unnecessarily long time. Hong, eventually, started laughing—a small wet laugh, the kind he got when he was too overwhelmed to do any of the other reasonable things—and Nut, looking at him, started laughing too, and after a minute they had both completely lost the thread of what they were doing and were just sitting on the bed with the ring box open between them and Nut’s small piece of paper smoothed flat beside it and they were laughing at each other.
“Nut.”
“Mm.”
“Come here.”
Nut came over. He climbed across the duvet and into Hong’s lap, knees on either side of Hong’s hips, and put both arms around Hong’s shoulders. Hong, who had been planning some kind of more dignified moment, abandoned it entirely.
“Hi,” Hong said.
“Hi.”
“We are—we are getting married.”
“Yes.”
“To each other.”
“Hong—”
“I am clarifying.”
“Yes. To each other.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, sweetheart.”
Nut pressed his face into the side of Hong’s neck and made a thick, wet sound against his skin. Hong, with both arms wrapped around his back, looked over Nut’s shoulder at the ring box and the pressed flower side by side on the duvet, and felt something in his chest do—and this was a feeling he was going to have to invent new language for, because the old language was insufficient—something.
“Nut.”
“Mm.”
“Try it on.”
“In a minute.”
“Now.”
“Hong—”
“Now.”
Nut, after a beat, sat up. He let Hong take his left hand. He let Hong, with hands that were—Hong noticed, suddenly—shaking slightly, slide the gold band onto his ring finger.
It fit.
Of course it fit. Hong had measured it on a sleeping Nut a couple of weeks ago with a piece of string.
Nut looked down at his own hand for a long second.
“Hong.”
“Yes.”
“It fits.”
“Yes.”
“How did you—”
“I will tell you later. Not now.”
“You used a piece of string.”
“I—yes. I used a piece of string.”
“While I was asleep.”
“Yes.”
“You are a menace.”
“Mm.”
Nut, with the ring on his hand, was—Hong noted with private joy—already not able to stop looking at it. He turned his hand a little, in the evening light. The gold caught it, low and warm.
“Nut.”
“Mm.”
“You have not—you have not put a flower on me.”
“I—I did not bring it as a thing. It was—it was symbolic.”
“It is also a symbol when you put it on me.”
“Hong, you cannot wear a pressed flower—”
“I will wear the paper. Put it in my pocket. I am putting it in my pocket. I am keeping it in my pocket for the rest of my life.”
“Hong—”
“Tomorrow I am going to get one for you. From the jeweler. We will go together. Pick the one you want me to wear.”
“Hong, you—you do not have to—”
“I want to. Nut.”
Nut, looking at him, was quiet for a second.
“Okay,” he said, very softly. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
A pause.
“Hong.”
“Yes.”
“Can—can we tell people.”
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“Now-ish.”
“Hong, I want to tell Hin tonight.”
“Tell him tonight. Tell him right now. Get your phone.”
“What about your family.”
“I will call my mother in five minutes. I will let you have your moment first.”
“Hong—”
“Get your phone, Nut. Call your brother.”
Nut got his phone.
Hong, watching him fumble with it with the new ring catching the light on his finger, sat back against the headboard and felt—for what was now the third time in eight minutes—a small specific overwhelm rise in his chest. He pressed his palm against it. He took a breath.
He had, he thought, distantly, been about to ask a question.
He had asked it.
The answer had been yes.
The answer had been yes also, in fact, which was somehow—and Hong was going to think about this for the rest of his life—even better than just yes.
He looked over at the small piece of paper on the duvet with the pressed coral-pink rose taped to it.
He picked it up. He folded it. He put it, carefully, in his own pocket.
Nut, dialing, did not see him do this.
Hong smiled to himself, in the small bedroom, in the evening light.
ii. Telling People
Hin cried.
He did not say he was crying. He had answered the phone at his small wooden desk in Khon Kaen the way he always answered the phone—with the soft careful greeting of a schoolteacher who had learned not to startle children—and Nut had said, in the careful voice he used with his brother, Hin, I have something to tell you, and Hin had said yes, and Nut had said Hong asked me to marry him, and Hin, after a long pause, had said did you say yes, and Nut had said yes, he said yes too—I asked him also, at the same time, and Hin had said, faintly, oh.
Then there was a long pause on the line.
Then Hin said, in a slightly different voice, “Tell Hong I am very glad.”
“Hin.”
“Yes.”
“Are you—are you crying.”
“No.”
“You sound like you are crying.”
“I am not crying. I am—I am simply pleased.”
“Hin—”
“I am pleased. I am very pleased. Tell Hong I am very glad.”
“Okay.”
“Nut.”
“Yes.”
“You are happy.”
“I am very happy.”
“Then I am happy.”
“Hin.”
“Yes.”
“I love you.”
A pause.
“And I you.”
Nut hung up. He sat on the bed with the phone in his hand for a second. Hong, who was sitting on the floor beside the bed with the small ring box still in his lap, looked up at him.
“He cried,” Nut said.
“He cried.”
“He did not say he was crying. He was crying.”
“I know.”
“How did you know.”
“He cried at our two-year anniversary. He sent you that voice message. He cried.”
“Hong, how do you remember things like that.”
“Nut. I have a degree.”
“You and your degree.”
“Honors.”
Nut, with the new gold band on his left hand, reached down to him. Hong put his hand up. They held hands, fingers laced, for a quiet moment. Then Hong got out his own phone.
His mother answered on the second ring.
“Mae.”
“Hong.”
“I have to tell you something.”
“What is it.”
“I am getting married.”
A small silence.
“To Nut?”
“Yes to Nut, who else—”
“Hong, I want to be sure. I do not want to assume.”
“Yes to Nut.”
A longer pause.
Then Hong’s mother said, in her usual practical voice with the smallest possible crack in it, “When.”
“We have not decided.”
“Where.”
“We have not decided.”
“How many people.”
“Mae, we got engaged twelve minutes ago, I have not—Mae—”
“Hong, your aunt will need a date. Your aunt always needs a date six months out. You know how she is.”
“It will not be in six months. It will be—I don’t know. Soon. Few months. We will tell you when we know.”
“All right.”
“Mae.”
“Yes.”
“Are you happy.”
A pause.
“Hong.”
“Yes.”
“I have been waiting two years.”
“…Oh.”
“I am very happy. Tell Nut. Tell him from me. Tell him.”
“I will tell him.”
“Tell him now.”
“Right now?”
“Right now while I am on the phone.”
“Mae—”
“Hong.”
Hong, sitting on the floor with his hand still in Nut’s hand, looked up at Nut.
“My mother says she is very happy and she has been waiting two years and to tell you, immediately, while she is on the phone, that she is happy.”
Nut, who had been about to say something, did not say it. He covered his face with his free hand.
“Tell her—” he said, into his hand. “Tell her I—”
“He is overwhelmed, Mae. He is hiding his face. I think he is going to cry. He is doing the thing he does. Where his ears go pink.”
“His ears go pink?”
“Pink, Mae. Very pink.”
“Oh, Hong.”
“I am telling on him.”
“Tell him I am sending him love. Tell him I will see him next week. Tell him I am making him—”
“I will tell him everything. I promise.”
“Hong.”
“Yes.”
“Tell your father after dinner. He will be too emotional before dinner. Wait until he has eaten.”
“Okay.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, Mae.”
He hung up.
Nut, still with his face in his hand, said, “My ears do not go pink.”
“They do. They are pink right now.”
“Hong—”
“They are extremely pink. They are like little lanterns.”
Nut, after a beat, removed his hand from his face and looked at Hong with the most pitiful, undignified, deeply pleased expression Hong had ever seen on him. His ears were, in fact, very pink.
“You told your mother that my ears go pink.”
“I told her many things. That was one of them.”
“Hong.”
“What.”
“…I love you.”
“Get down here.”
“I am on the bed.”
“Get down here, Nut.”
Nut got down. He slid off the bed and onto the floor and into Hong’s lap on the rug, and Hong, who had been planning to make a few more phone calls, decided that the phone calls could wait, and instead just held him for a while.
They told Ploy in a video call the next morning. Ploy took the news with great seriousness, asked if she could be the flower girl, was told she was a bit old to technically be the flower girl, demanded the role anyway, was given the role of “official program distributor,” accepted with mild outrage, demanded payment in cookies, was granted three months of cookies, and ended the call shouting MAE THEY ARE GETTING MARRIED in a way that suggested Hong’s mother had not yet, in fact, told her.
They told Boon and the high school people via group chat. They told the bakery staff at the staff meeting on Wednesday. They told the flower shop’s regulars informally, one by one, over the next two weeks—Nut would mention it in passing while wrapping someone’s tulips, and the regular would explode, and Nut would have to spend twenty minutes accepting congratulations and being touched on the arm by people he had been doing this with for three years.
Mrs. Wattana, when she came in on Thursday for her monthly carnations, was told by Nut, hesitantly. She did not say anything for a second. Then she said, “Good.”
Then, after a beat, “He is a fine young man. I have watched you both.”
Then, after another beat, looking at Nut very steadily, “You will be happy.”
Nut, who would later have to sit down for a minute behind the counter after she left, said, in his careful voice, “Thank you, Khun Wattana.”
She nodded. She paid. She left.
That night, in bed, Nut told Hong about it. He told it haltingly—Mrs. Wattana said—and Hong, against his chest, made a sound and said you see, you see, she does have a soul, I told you and Nut said I never said she did not have a soul and Hong said you said she was a professional grouch and Nut said it was you, and she is also that and Hong laughed against his collarbone and said I am going to send her flowers from the wedding and Nut said do not send her flowers, she will be embarrassed and Hong said I am going to send her flowers anyway, and Nut, smiling against the top of Hong’s head, did not push back.
iii. The Planning
The first decision was the size.
Hong’s mother had—almost immediately after the initial call—started a small spreadsheet. The spreadsheet was titled, in Thai, Hong and Nut Project Wedding, and Hong had received view access to it on the Wednesday after they got engaged. There were columns for people, role, contact, RSVP, food preferences, transport, notes.
There were sixty-two names on the spreadsheet.
This was, Hong had to admit when he sat down with Nut to review it on the Thursday evening, low for his mother. She had restrained herself. She had not, for example, added every cousin she had ever met at a wedding herself. She had limited it to immediate family, named family friends, and a small respectful number of his parents’ close colleagues.
“Sixty-two,” Nut said, looking at the screen.
“From my side.”
“Sixty-two from your side.”
“It is—it is low for her, Nut. She has been to weddings with two hundred people from one family. She is being very respectful.”
“Sixty-two.”
“How many from your side.”
Nut counted on his fingers. “Maybe ten.”
“Ten.”
“My parents, my brother, my aunt, four cousins, two old friends from school. Ten.”
“Okay.”
“Hong, your side has six times as many.”
“It is fine. My family is—my family is large and loud. Yours is small and dignified. That is the entire dynamic of our relationship. We knew this.”
“I know but—”
“It is fine. Sixty-two plus ten plus the bakery staff plus the regulars we cannot avoid inviting because we live with these people. We are looking at maybe ninety.”
“Ninety.”
“Ninety, Nut.”
“Hong.”
“Yes.”
“I have never been to a wedding with ninety people.”
“I have been to weddings with five hundred people.”
“That is the problem. We are coming from different planets.”
“We are coming from the same neighborhood now. The neighborhood will have to come. Mrs. Wattana will have to come. The noodle lady will have to come. Tui will have to come—Nut, Tui has been making your matcha for two and a half years, he is coming. The man who runs the shoe repair will have to come, and so will Noi. Lego will be there because we cannot not invite Lego, and Bua would come too because she had somehow become part of all of this as well. And—Nut, William is bringing Est, obviously, which is also basically family at this point.”
“Noi is not coming to our wedding.”
“Noi is absolutely coming to our wedding.”
“Hong—”
“He is your dog. He will be there.”
“Hong—”
Hong, looking at the spreadsheet, was smiling so hard his cheek hurt.
“All right,” Nut said. “All right. Ninety. With a dog.”
“Ninety with a dog.”
“Where.”
“That is the next problem.”
It turned out there was a place. A small banquet hall, sort of, attached to a temple courtyard, on the same street as the noodle lady, three blocks from the bakery. They had walked past it a thousand times. Nut had not, in three years, ever really registered it. Hong had, because Hong’s family knew the family who ran it. The hall was, by the standards Hong’s mother had been muttering about in the background, tiny; it held about a hundred people; it had a courtyard that opened off the back with a small old banyan tree in the middle.
They went to look at it on the following Sunday.
They stood in the courtyard. The afternoon was hot. The banyan tree made a wide low circle of shade. There was a small stage at one end of the hall, opening out toward the courtyard. There were paper lanterns strung in a careful crisscross between the building and the tree, left over from someone’s recent event.
“Hong.”
“Yes.”
“Here.”
“Yeah?”
“Here.”
“Yeah.”
They went home and paid the deposit the next day.
The dress code was the next thing. Hong’s mother wanted formal. Nut’s mother, when consulted, said whatever the boys want, but please not those silly Western tuxedos, you will sweat to death. Hong’s mother, conceding, said very well, but not too casual, this is not a market. Nut and Hong, between them, settled on linen—light, soft, white and cream—with small flower pins on the collars instead of boutonnieres because Nut, who was making all the flowers himself, had announced that the only way he was going to get through the morning of the wedding was by not having to make floral arrangements that would then sit on his own chest.
Nut was making all the flowers.
This had been a point of brief tension. Hong’s mother had wanted to hire someone. Nut, my dear, you cannot do your own flowers on the day, you will be busy, you will be a wreck. Nut had said, very politely, that he was a florist, that this was, in fact, his profession, and that he was going to do the flowers and that was final. Hong’s mother, who had been outmaneuvered, had retreated. Hong, watching the exchange, had been quietly proud.
Hong was making the cake.
This had also been a point of brief tension. Nut had wanted to hire someone. Hong, you cannot do your own cake on the day, you will be busy, you will be a wreck. Hong had said, very politely, that he was a baker, that this was, in fact, his profession, and that he was going to make the cake. Nut, who had set himself up for this, had been forced to retreat.
They had then both, separately, looked at each other and admitted that they were possibly being stubborn about the wrong things.
They had made a compromise. Each of them would have one assistant. Nut’s assistant would be his cousin Apple, who had been working part-time at the flower shop and who could handle the arrangements on the morning of so that Nut only had to do the centerpieces and the very specific small bouquets for the immediate family. Hong’s assistant would be Bua, the older baker from down the block who had been pitching in at the bakery on busy days for over a year, with Lego—bright, terrifyingly organized, and already taking the job far too seriously—handling the rest of the dessert table, the labels, and whatever small disasters Hong was not allowed to know about, so that Hong only had to assemble the cake itself the night before and frost it the morning of.
This was, even with help, going to be a lot.
They had decided they did not care.
There was the matter of music. Hong’s best friend William, who had been in town for ten days before the wedding for what he had described in his text messages as making sure my baby Hong is not making a terrible mistake (Hong had pointed out he was older than William by two months; William had ignored this), sat down with them on a Sunday evening with a clipboard and announced that he had a plan. William’s plan involved a small live band—three musicians who were friends of his from the band scene—plus a playlist for after dinner that he had been curating for two years, just in case.
Nut, looking at this, said, “You have been curating it for two years.”
“Yes.”
“Two.”
“Yes.”
“You did not know we were getting married until two months ago.”
“Did I not.”
“William.”
“Hong is—Hong is a clearly settling-down kind of person. I figured the day would come. I was preparing.”
Hong, who had at this point known William for almost a decade and Nut had known him long enough to recognize the warning signs, looked at Nut and said, “My best friend is a menace.”
“I told you he was a menace.”
“I am the fun one,” William said, with great offense. “Nut, tell him I am the fun one.”
“You are extremely loud.”
“That is not the same as fun.”
“It is correlated with fun, Nut. Loudness has correlation with fun. I am bringing—Hong, I am bringing the guitar guy.”
“Oh god.”
“Who is the guitar guy,” Nut said.
“You do not want to know who the guitar guy is.”
“I want to know who the guitar guy is.”
“Nut, the guitar guy is—apparently, William used to play at a place he and Est went to a couple of years ago. He is—William.”
“He is very romantic,” William said. “Nut, he plays—Nut, he plays the kind of songs that—Nut, the guitar guy is the kind of guitar guy who makes you think I should fall in love. And I already am in love so I cannot use him for that. I am giving him to you. Free of charge.”
“You have already asked him.”
“He said yes. Free for the night. Hong, your best friend loves you so much, so—” William laughed, finally. “He said yes. Very generously.”
Hong, on the couch, was—Nut could see—already a little glassy.
“William.”
“Yes.”
“…Thank you.”
“My pleasure. I am the fun one. Tell him.”
“He is the fun one.”
“There. Recorded.”
William left at nine. Hong, locking the door behind him, came back to the couch and said, “I have got to apologize to you, in advance, for everything William will do at the wedding. Everything.”
“He is going to be a disaster.”
“He will be the biggest disaster.”
“Yes.”
“But—I cannot wait.”
“Hong—”
“I cannot wait.”
Nut, looking at him on the couch, smiled.
iv. The Night Before
They slept apart on the night before.
This had been Hong’s mother’s idea. It had also, separately, been Nut’s mother’s idea, which Hong’s mother had taken as confirmation of her own opinion. Both mothers had decided, independently, that the boys must spend the night apart, it is tradition, and Nut and Hong, who had not been planning to do this, had been informed that they were doing it.
So Nut went home to his parents’ house in the suburbs, where his brother was visiting and his aunt had taken over the spare bedroom, and Hong went to his parents’ house across the city, where Ploy had been waiting since six in the afternoon to ambush him with a presentation about the day’s plans.
The wedding was at four in the afternoon the following day.
It was the longest night either of them had spent apart in years.
Nut, in his old childhood bedroom, lay on his back at eleven-thirty and could not sleep. He had not slept in this bedroom in a long time. The bedroom had been mostly repurposed by his mother into a half-storage room. There were boxes of old fabric stacked on the desk. There was a small framed photograph on the bookshelf of him and Hin, age eight and ten, holding a paper kite at the beach.
His mother had left the photograph out for him.
Nut had not seen it in years.
He sat up. He looked at it. The boy in the photograph—small, sun-squinting, wholly unaware that he would one day be twenty-five and getting married in fifteen hours—was, technically, him. It did not feel like him. It felt like a small earlier person whom he was now grateful for and slightly protective of.
He thought, in the soft careful way he had of thinking, that boy will be married tomorrow. The person he marries is forty kilometers across the city right now and is not asleep either.
He knew Hong was not asleep. He had no evidence for this. He simply knew.
He looked at his phone.
He composed a text. He thought better of it. He deleted it. He composed it again. He sent it.
Nut: hi
There was a pause. Then, immediately, his phone buzzed.
Hong: hi
Then, a second later, another.
Hong: you cant sleep either
Nut: no
Hong: me either
Hong: ploy keeps coming in to check if i'm still here
Hong: she thinks i'm going to run away
Hong: she has a system. she comes in every twenty minutes and looks in from the door
Nut: she is a child, where is she going to be
Hong: she has a whole life, nut, she has a calendar
Nut, in his bed, laughed quietly into the dark.
Nut: are you nervous
Hong: no
Hong: not even a little
Nut: not even a little
Hong: what about you
He thought about it.
Nut: no
Nut: not nervous at all
Nut: just lonely
A pause.
Hong: nut
Hong: it’s a hill of beans. one night.
Nut: i know
Hong: one night
Nut: i know
Hong: tomorrow
Nut: tomorrow
Hong: nut
Nut: yes
Hong: go to sleep
Nut: you go to sleep first
Hong: we cannot both go to sleep first.
Nut: you go.
Hong: you go.
Nut, in his bed in his parents’ house, smiled at the dark ceiling.
Nut: okay you go first
Hong: nut.
Nut: i will count to three and then put my phone down. you put yours down too. on three.
Hong: okay.
Nut: one
Nut: two
Nut: three
He put his phone down. He turned over. He closed his eyes. He did not sleep for another two hours. But he did, eventually, around two in the morning, fall down into a soft thin sleep, with the photograph of the eight-year-old version of him still in his eyeline on the bookshelf and the soft small sound of a city night outside the window.
Across the city, in a different bedroom, Hong did the same.
v. The Morning Of
Nut woke up at six.
His mother was already up. She had made him breakfast—toast and a sliced mango and a small bowl of soup. He ate it in the kitchen at the small table where he had eaten breakfast for the first eighteen years of his life. His brother Hin was reading the newspaper across from him. They did not say much.
Around seven Nut got into a car and went to the flower shop, which he had left fully stocked the night before. Apple, who was quietly competent and had a better eye than she gave herself credit for, had already been working on arrangements since five-thirty. The shop smelled like a forest. There were boxes of cut peonies, white roses, jasmine, eucalyptus, small unopened buds of heliotrope—the whole list Nut had agonized over for weeks.
“How are we doing,” Nut said.
“We are fine. I have the table centerpieces almost done. We will load up by ten.”
“Show me.”
Apple showed him. The centerpieces were beautiful. Apple had—Nut had not expected this—gone in a slightly different direction with the side arrangements than Nut had planned, opting for looser, more cottage-style shapes than Nut’s usual taut neat work, and Nut, looking at them, after a beat said, “Better than what I would have done.”
“Sorry?”
“Better than my plan. You were right.”
Apple, who had been bracing for criticism, blinked.
“Oh,” she said. “Thank you.”
Nut, who was—he was registering this—already a little emotional even before the day had really started, picked up his secateurs and started on the family bouquets.
There were four of them, one each for his mother, Hong’s mother, Ploy, and one small one for himself, because he had decided at the last minute that he wanted something to hold. He made them all the same—the same combination, in slightly different proportions—jasmine and heliotrope and one coral-pink rose each, the same arrangement he had been making every Sunday and that he was now, on this morning of all mornings, finally making for everyone.
He finished his own last.
He stood at the counter looking at it for a long second.
Apple, behind him, said, “You okay.”
“Yes.”
“You sure.”
“Yes.”
A beat.
“Nut.”
“Yes.”
“Cry now. You will not have time later.”
Nut, with his back to her, did. Just for a second. Just the smallest amount—wiping his face on his sleeve, not even looking down. Apple, behind him, did not say anything. She handed him a tissue at exactly the right moment. He took it without looking back.
“Better?”
“Better.”
“All right. Let’s load up.”
Across the city Hong was in the bakery from five-thirty. He had assembled the cake the night before—three tiers of vanilla bean and coconut, each layer with a thin band of jasmine cream in the middle, the recipe he had been refining for the last month. Now, on the morning of, all he had to do was crumb-coat, frost, and decorate, which was—he and Bua had done worse cakes in less time—manageable.
Bua, who was sixty-two and had been in baking longer than Hong had been alive, was running the rest of the dessert table. She did not need supervision. Hong was simply trying to stay out of her way.
He frosted the cake. He decorated it with very small sugar flowers—pale cream, pale pink, the smallest possible jasmine he could shape with his hands—and small fresh edible blossoms that Nut had sent over in a sealed container at six in the morning by special delivery (Apple again, doing rounds).
He stepped back from the cake at ten.
It was, by any standard he had ever held himself to, fine.
It was, by his current standard—the standard of a man who was getting married in a few hours—extremely fine.
He went upstairs to the apartment to shower and dress.
The apartment, with Nut gone for the night, had felt—at six the previous evening, when he had come back to drop off the cake supplies—like an empty room. It still felt like that now. He showered. He put on the cream linen suit that had been hanging on the back of the bedroom door for two weeks. He looked at himself in the small full-length mirror in the hall.
He looked, he thought, like someone about to get married.
His mother arrived a little after three to drive him to the temple. Ploy was in the back seat in her own outfit—a small pale yellow dress, with flowers in her hair that Apple had made—and she did not say anything for the first five minutes of the drive, which was, for Ploy, unprecedented.
“Ploy.”
“What.”
“You okay.”
“Yes.”
“Why are you quiet.”
“I am thinking.”
“About what.”
“About what to say in my speech.”
Hong, in the front seat, paused.
“…Your speech.”
“I am giving a speech.”
“You are giving a speech.”
“At the reception. Mae said I could.”
“Mae.”
His mother, driving, said, “Mm-hm.”
“Mae, you said our kid could give a speech.”
“She is old enough. And she has been preparing. And it is not your wedding alone, Hong, it is hers too.”
“Hers.”
“In a way.”
Ploy, in the back, said, “I am the official program distributor and the speech-giver. Mae gave me two roles.”
“…Of course she did.”
“It is going to be a great speech.”
“How long is the speech.”
“Five minutes.”
“Ploy.”
“Three minutes. Maybe two and a half.”
“Ploy.”
“Two.”
“Less than two.”
“Two and a quarter.”
Hong, in the front seat, smiled out the window.
“Okay,” he said. “Two and a quarter.”
The temple courtyard, when they pulled up, had been transformed.
Apple had done the flowers. There were arrangements on every surface—the rented chairs facing the small raised dais under the banyan tree had small bunches tied to their backs; the entrance had two tall standing pieces; the dais itself, which had been hung the night before with cream silk by Nut’s mother and Hong’s mother together (an entire other story), was strung with jasmine and small heliotrope. The paper lanterns from the courtyard’s previous event had been replaced with new ones, all the same warm white. Hong, getting out of the car, stood for a second and just looked.
His mother put a hand on his back.
“Beautiful, no?”
“Beautiful.”
“You ready?”
“Yes.”
“Hong.”
“Yes.”
“He is here. They got here forty minutes ago. He is in the small room. Lego said he is—Lego said he is very pink in the ears.”
Hong laughed, helplessly.
“Tell him to stop telling on him.”
“He is doing me a favor. Now go. You are not seeing him until the dais. Go around the other side.”
He went around the other side.
The small room they had given him to wait in had a chair, a small mirror, a fan, and a window that looked out into the courtyard but at the wrong angle to see the dais. He sat in the chair. His mother left him for a moment to go check something. Ploy, who had been told to stay with him, was—as far as Hong could tell—using the time to mouth the lines of her speech in the corner of the room.
His phone buzzed.
Nut: are you here yet
Hong smiled.
Hong: here. small room.
Nut: me too. they put me in a closet.
Hong: nut it’s not a closet
Nut: it has a broom in it hong
Hong: lol
Hong: how are you
A pause.
Nut: good
Hong: are you crying
Nut: no
Hong: nut
Nut: not yet
Hong: save some for when you see me
Nut: hong i am going to lose it the moment i see you
Hong: ok
Nut: ok
A pause.
Nut: hong
Hong: yes
Nut: see you in twenty minutes
Hong: see you in twenty minutes
Hong put his phone down. He looked at the ceiling.
He had been telling everyone, all morning, that he was not nervous. He had been telling himself the same. He had been mostly believing it.
He was, now, slightly nervous.
“Phi Hong.”
He looked over. Ploy was standing in the middle of the room.
“You look like you might throw up,” she said.
“Thank you, Ploy.”
“You will not throw up though. I have decided.”
“Have you.”
“Yes. I have decided that nobody throws up at this wedding. That is one of my speech topics.”
“That is in your speech.”
“It is in my speech.”
Hong, despite himself, laughed.
“Come here,” he said.
Ploy came over. He pulled her into a small hug. She was, these days, finally tall enough that hugging her standing was getting awkward, but Hong did it anyway, with his sister’s small bony shoulders under his hands, and she squeezed him with surprising fierceness for someone her size.
“Phi.”
“Yes.”
“You will be okay.”
“Yes.”
“And tomorrow I am still your sister and not Nut’s.”
“Ploy—”
“I want to be clear about it. I am yours. He gets to be my brother now. But I am yours first. That is the correct hierarchy.”
“Okay, Ploy.”
“I have made flashcards.”
“Of course you have.”
“I will make some for Nut too. He will need to learn his place.”
“Please do not give Nut flashcards.”
“I will give him flashcards.”
“Ploy.”
“Phi.”
“…Okay.”
A small knock on the door. His mother. It was time.
Hong stood up. He smoothed his suit jacket. He took a breath. Ploy, holding her small stack of programs, slipped her free hand into his.
They walked out into the courtyard together.
vi. The Ceremony
What Hong would remember of the ceremony, later, came in fragments.
The look on Nut’s face when they saw each other across the dais. Nut, in cream linen, with his hair carefully combed, his ears—yes, Lego had not been lying—extremely pink. His eyes, finding Hong’s, going very large, and very wet, and then closing for a second, like he was steadying himself, and then opening again.
The walk. He did not remember the walk itself. He remembered that there had been a walk; he remembered that the chairs had been full; he remembered that someone—his aunt, he thought—had reached out and touched his elbow as he went past. He did not remember walking. He arrived at the dais.
The standing there. The looking at each other. Nut’s face, two feet from his, doing—doing something. Hong reaching up to wipe a tear off Nut’s cheekbone before they had even started, because Nut was, true to his text, losing it.
The vows. They had written them themselves. Nut had typed his on a piece of paper that he held in slightly shaking hands. He read it carefully, in a voice that was working very hard.
Hong, I have known you for two years and a few months. In that time I have learned more about how to be loved than I learned in all the years before you. You have taught me how to ask for things. You have taught me how to be carried. You have taught me that the small things I have been holding can be held with somebody. I have not, in all that time, been less than completely sure of you. I am going to keep being sure of you. I will hold the small things and the heavy things with you for the rest of our lives. I will make you a bouquet every Sunday. I will trust you with my ears when they go pink. I love you. Thank you for asking. Yes.
The yes at the end. The way Nut’s voice cracked on it.
Hong’s own vows. He did not remember reading them, exactly—he remembered standing there with the small folded paper in his hand and seeing the words and saying them—but he did remember the feeling of his voice in his throat.
Nut. Two and a half years ago I came across a street with a tray of test pastries because I could not handle the suspense. I have not, in the time since, ever once been less suspended by you. I have been waiting for every small thing—for the first kiss, for the first night, for the first time you let me in, for the first time you let me see you when you were tired. I am still waiting. I will be waiting for the rest of our lives, because you are a person who unfolds slowly, and I am—I am very glad to have the time. I love you. I love the contained version of you and the uncontained version of you. I love every version that comes next. I will bring you matcha every morning. I will hold your hand at the market. I will keep your pressed flower in my pocket for the rest of my life. Yes.
There was applause.
The rings. They had bought a matching set the day after the proposal—gold, plain, the same plain band Hong had given Nut the night of the engagement, now in a pair. They put them on each other. Nut, putting Hong’s on, missed the knuckle on the first try and had to push it on the second; he laughed, wet, into the small space between them, and Hong laughed back.
The kiss. Brief. Almost shy. Almost like the first one ever, except this time everyone they knew was watching.
The cheering. Hong’s best friend William, who had—true to form—taken a moment to make sure everyone knew he was the loudest one there. Ploy in the front row, throwing her programs into the air. Hong’s mother, openly weeping. Nut’s mother, with great dignity, weeping more quietly. Hin, behind her, with his hand on her shoulder. Apple in the back, with a small box of tissues that she was distributing to the rest of the row.
And, far at the back, sitting in a folding chair like an honored guest, with a small leash held by Nut’s cousin Apple’s younger sister—an extremely old, extremely fat brown dog, watching the proceedings with mild interest, occasionally thumping his tail against the chair leg.
Noi had come.
Hong, walking down off the dais with Nut’s hand in his, caught sight of him. He stopped, just for a second. He pointed.
“Nut.”
“I know.”
“Nut, Noi.”
“I see him.”
“You did not invite him.”
“I did not invite him.”
“Who invited Noi.”
“My mother.”
“Your mother invited Noi.”
“My mother and the shoe-repair man worked it out two weeks ago. I was informed about it yesterday.”
“Nut.”
“I know.”
“I love your mother.”
“I know.”
They walked the long way down between the chairs to greet people, with Nut’s hand in his and the late afternoon sun coming sideways through the banyan tree, and at the end of the path Noi, with the small dignity of his old age, allowed both of them to kneel down and rub him very briefly behind his good ear.
vii. The Reception
The reception ran late.
They were supposed to eat at six. They ate at six-thirty, because the live band William had brought—three musicians, plus William himself, who had apparently decided that the guitar guy was not a joke but a role—had started playing at six and nobody had wanted to interrupt. Nut’s mother had eventually clapped her hands and announced that everyone was sitting down, and people had, reluctantly, sat down.
There were many courses. Hong’s mother had been in charge of the menu. The menu had been a thirty-minute negotiation that had resulted in a careful compromise between her vision and Nut’s mother’s. There were small spring rolls. There was tom yum. There was a green curry that, Hong knew, would be talked about for years.
Hong did not eat much. He could not. He kept reaching for Nut’s hand under the table. Nut did the same.
At some point Tui appeared beside Nut’s elbow with a cold matcha in one hand and a small iced coffee in the other, both in takeaway cups from the café even though the café was, technically, closed for the afternoon.
“You are both useless,” Tui said, setting them down. “Drink something.”
“Tui,” Hong said, already emotional.
“No. Do not start. I have been making his matcha for two and a half years. I am not stopping at his wedding.”
Nut, who had not realized until that exact second that he had needed the matcha, put one hand over the cup and said, very quietly, “Thank you.”
Tui looked at him for a second. Then, gruffly, “You look good married.”
Hong made a sound. Nut looked down at the cup.
Across the room, Lego was moving between tables with a stack of extra napkins and the terrifying efficiency of a person who had decided the entire reception was his responsibility. William, who had been attempting to rearrange the order of speeches for dramatic effect, was being physically steered away from the microphone by Est with one calm hand on the back of his jacket.
“Do not,” Est was saying.
“I was improving the structure.”
“You were creating a hostage situation.”
“It was going to be memorable.”
“It is already memorable.”
Hong, watching them, started laughing. Nut, with his hand still wrapped around the matcha, looked around the courtyard—at Tui, at Lego, at William being quietly removed from danger by Est—and felt, suddenly, the full shape of the room around them.
Not just ninety people.
Their people.
Speeches.
Hin gave a short one. He said, I have known my brother his whole life. He is the most careful person I have ever met. He has spent twenty-five years not letting people get close. Watching him let Hong get close has been—has been the greatest gift of my life. Welcome to our family, Hong.
There was clapping. Nut was, by this point, openly weeping into Hong’s shoulder. Hong was patting the back of his head, with his own face wet.
William gave a long one. It went on for fifteen minutes. It involved seven separate embarrassing stories about Hong as a teenager, three of which Hong’s mother had specifically forbidden him to tell. He told them anyway. Est, sitting beside him at one of the tables, did not even try to stop him—Est had been William’s partner long enough to know that William giving a wedding speech with restrictions was not, in fact, William giving a wedding speech. By the end, half the room was laughing too hard to breathe.
Ploy gave hers.
She climbed onto a chair. She had not been given a microphone. She did not need a microphone. She held up her small piece of paper.
Today, she said, in her clearest schoolroom voice, my brother Hong is marrying his husband Nut. They have been in love for a long time but they are very stupid about admitting it. Last year my mother and I bet on whether they would get engaged by Christmas. My mother won and I owe her one hundred baht. I am going to make Nut pay it instead because he is the one who took too long.
Nut, when I first met you you were quiet and you did not say very much, and I was very suspicious of you, because I had been Hong’s only sibling my entire life and I did not want a new one. But you let me eat your fruit salad at the bakery the second time we met, and I decided you were okay.
You are now my brother. That is a new fact. I am the older sister of you, even though you are way older than me, because I knew Hong first. I have decided this. I have a flashcard about it.
Phi Hong, I love you. Don’t be sad about not being my only brother anymore. You are still my favorite. Mae, sorry about saying that out loud.
Now everybody eat your food.
Thank you.
She climbed down off the chair.
There was a long, stunned, helpless applause.
Hong, at the table, had completely given up on having a dignified face. He was crying. Nut, beside him, was—laughing and crying simultaneously, with one hand over his mouth—and Hong’s mother, across the table, was sending an arm around Ploy’s shoulders and pulling her in close and not letting her go.
The toasts. The cake-cutting. Bua, from down the block, watched the cake-cutting with the small proprietary pride of a person who had been baking for forty years and had taken a quiet shine to the kid across the street the moment he opened up. Mrs. Wattana, in attendance after all—Hong had not seen who had finally convinced her—sat very upright at her assigned table and did not smile during the speeches but did, Nut noticed at one point, slip a small white envelope onto their gift table on her way back from the bathroom.
The dancing.
Nut had been quietly dreading the dancing. He had not, in his life, been a person who danced at weddings. He had not, in two years, been a person who danced with Hong in public. But the band—William included, unfortunately and magnificently—started up a song he had specifically chosen as the first one, a slow soft cover of a song Hong’s mother had sung in the kitchen of the family house for thirty years, and William, in his role as best-friend-self-appointed-MC, called Nut and Hong out onto the floor by name in a voice that brooked no opposition.
They went.
Hong’s hand went up. Nut took it. Hong’s other hand went to Nut’s waist. They started swaying in a way that, technically, qualified as dancing.
“Hi,” Hong said.
“Hi.”
“How are we doing.”
“Married.”
“Married.”
“It is—Hong, it is—I do not have language.”
“You said that in your vows.”
“I—” Nut laughed, weakly. “I said it in my vows and it is still true. I do not have any language. I am going to need to invent some.”
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
They danced. The song was slow. Nut was, again, on the verge—Hong could feel it through his shoulders—and Hong, who was on his own verge, just tipped his forehead against Nut’s and let them both stay there for a few measures.
A small private moment in a courtyard full of ninety people.
After their dance—William, with great mercy, did not make them do a second one alone—the floor filled up. Hong’s father danced with his mother. Nut’s father, who was a quiet man, sat at his table and watched the band. Hong’s aunt, who had had three glasses of wine, asked Nut’s mother to dance, and they did, slow, while Nut and Hong, from their reseated position at the head table, watched their mothers laugh together about something neither of them would ever know.
Ploy danced with Hin. This had, apparently, been arranged in advance.
The party went late. The food kept coming out. People started leaving around ten, by ones and twos. William, who had been on his feet for hours, started winding down the band. The guitar guy—William did one last song, a soft instrumental this time, quieter than he had been all night, while Hong’s mother and Nut’s mother sat side by side at one of the cleared tables holding hands like sisters.
At eleven-thirty Nut leaned over to Hong and said, very quietly, “Are you ready.”
“Ready for what.”
“Home.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
They said goodbye to people. They said goodbye for what felt like another hour. They said goodbye to Hin, who hugged Nut for a long time. They said goodbye to Lego, who had somehow acquired a clipboard by the end of the night and tried, even while being hugged by Hong, to tell him which dessert boxes had been sent home with which aunt.
“Lego,” Hong said into his hair. “Stop working.”
“I am not working. I am preserving order.”
“You are ridiculous.”
“I am extremely competent.”
“You are extremely loved,” Hong said, and Lego went very quiet for half a second before saying, “Yes, well,” and hugging him back harder.
They said goodbye to Tui, who had refused to dance, refused to give a speech, refused to admit he had cried during the vows, and had nevertheless stayed until the end with his sleeves rolled up and three empty trays in his hands.
“Come by on Tuesday,” Tui said to Nut. “I am not making your first married matcha for free if you are late.”
“You have never made it for free.”
“I have spiritually made it for free.”
Nut smiled. “Thank you.”
Tui looked away first. “Go home.”
They said goodbye to William, who kissed Hong on the top of the head and then tried to do the same to Nut, got one look from Nut, and adjusted mid-motion into a dramatic bow instead.
“My deepest congratulations,” William said. “To the most emotionally devastating neighborhood wedding I have ever personally produced.”
“You did not produce it,” Est said.
“I contributed atmosphere.”
“You contributed volume.”
“And heart.”
“And volume.”
Est, beside him, clasped Hong’s hand and then Nut’s, one after the other. “Thank you for trusting us to be here,” he said, quietly.
That undid Hong more than William’s entire fifteen-minute speech had. Nut, seeing it happen, tightened his hand around Hong’s and said, because someone had to, “We are very glad you came.”
William, for once, did not make a joke.
They said goodbye to Ploy, who had collapsed on a chair and was almost asleep and who said, in a sleepy voice, flashcards tomorrow Nut, flashcards, and Nut, kissing the top of her head, said yes, Ploy, tomorrow.
They said goodbye to Noi. Noi was already asleep.
Hong’s mother and Nut’s mother, between them, walked Nut and Hong out to the small car they had hired. They embraced both of them. Hong’s mother whispered something into Hong’s ear that Nut did not hear. Nut’s mother whispered something into Nut’s ear that Hong did not hear. Neither of them ever told each other what their mothers said.
The car drove them home.
It was the shortest drive of either of their lives.
viii. The Wedding Night
The apartment, when they got home at one in the morning, was waiting for them.
Apple, with the help of Bua, Hong’s aunt, and Lego, had been there earlier. They had put candles on every surface—small electric ones, careful, because Apple apparently believed in romance but not arson and Lego had made a checklist titled things that will not burn down the apartment—and switched them on. They had put fresh flowers in every vase. They had stocked the kitchen with food, the bathroom with towels, the bedroom with rose petals on the bedspread, which both Nut and Hong, on entering the room, looked at and then looked at each other about.
“Apple.”
“Apple.”
“They had a committee.”
“They had a committee.”
“Petals, Nut.”
“Petals.”
“I am going to be itchy for a week.”
“Mm hm.”
“This was a committee decision.”
“Mm hm.”
Hong, in the middle of the bedroom, in his cream linen suit with the small flower pin still on his collar, turned and looked at Nut.
Nut, in his cream linen suit with his small flower pin still on his collar, looked back.
The little lights were dim. The fan was on. The window was cracked open. The sounds of the city were, at this hour, the soft sounds of a city very late—a single motorbike somewhere far off, a dog barking once, a vendor going by, much fainter than during the day.
“Hi,” Hong said.
“Hi.”
“We’re married.”
“We’re married.”
“You said that in your vows.”
“I have to keep saying it. Until it sounds real.”
“It sounds real.”
“Does it.”
“To me. Yes.”
Hong crossed the room. He took Nut’s face in both hands—the way Nut had done to him many times—and kissed him.
It was a small kiss at first. Slow. Almost reverent. Nut’s hands came up and rested at Hong’s waist, fingers spread. They kissed for what felt like a long time and was, probably, only thirty seconds. When Hong pulled back, Nut’s eyes were closed.
“Nut.”
“Mm.”
“Open your eyes.”
“In a minute.”
“Now.”
Nut opened them. His eyes were wet again. They had been wet, on and off, for about nine hours.
“Hi,” Hong said.
“Hi.”
“Don’t cry any more.”
“I am not crying.”
“You are about to.”
“I am—I am processing.”
“Mm.”
“Hong.”
“Yes.”
“Are you really here.”
“I am really here.”
“You are not—you are not going to—”
“I am not going anywhere.”
“Okay.”
“Husband.”
A small silence.
Nut, who had been close to keeping it together, went off the cliff at husband. He made a sound. Hong, kissing him again, caught it.
“Hong—”
“Yeah.”
“Bed.”
“Yeah.”
“Now.”
“Yeah.”
But there were complications. They were both, technically, still in two-piece linen suits with small floral pins on the lapels. Nut, taking his suit jacket off, fumbled with the buttons; Hong, helping him, was no better. They laughed at their own hands. Nut, who had been trying to undo Hong’s pin, gave up and put it in his pocket; Hong did the same. They got each other’s jackets off and dropped them on the chair by the bed.
The rest of the way to undressed was slow.
It was slow because they were tired—tired in their bones, tired in the way that you got after performing your own emotions in front of a hundred people for nine hours—and because they kept stopping to kiss each other. Hong got Nut’s shirt unbuttoned and pushed it back off his shoulders and stopped to kiss the small spot at his collarbone, the way Hong sometimes did, and Nut, in response, made a low sound and pulled Hong in by the waist and they did not move for another two minutes.
By the time they were both down to their underwear and standing beside the bed—most of the rose petals had been brushed off, except a few clinging to the duvet at the corners—Nut’s hands were trembling slightly.
“Nut.”
“Mm.”
“Are you okay.”
“I am—Hong, I am so okay.”
“Sure?”
“I am—I am about to cry again. Do not—do not be alarmed.”
“I am not alarmed.”
“I am—I am going to cry through some of this.”
“Okay.”
“Just so you know.”
“It’s okay.”
“Hong—”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Come here.”
They got into bed. Hong pulled him down. Nut came, immediately, all the way down on top of him, with his face buried in the crook of Hong’s neck and his arms wrapped, tight, around Hong’s shoulders.
Hong wrapped him up.
“I have you,” he said, against the top of Nut’s head.
“You have me.”
“Always.”
“Always.”
“Husband.”
“Hong.”
“Husband.”
“Stop saying it like that—”
“I am not going to stop saying it like that. I am going to say it like that for the rest of our lives.”
“Hong—”
“Look at me.”
Nut, with great effort—because being held this tight made it hard to move—pushed himself up on his elbows enough to look at Hong properly. His face was wet. His hair was a mess. His ears, even now, even now in the dim warm light of the bedroom, were pink.
Hong reached up and touched the side of his face.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Here we are.”
“Here we are.”
“You okay.”
“I am—I am very okay.”
“Good.”
Nut leaned down and kissed him. Slow. Long. He was—Hong could feel—fully committed, finally, to doing this; the trembling was easing; the man on top of him was, very gradually, settling into himself again the way he had been doing earlier in the evening when they had stopped to kiss in the hallway between the courtyard and the small room. Hong, with his hands in Nut’s hair, let him take his time.
Nut took his time.
He kissed Hong slowly—for a long while, the way Nut always did, the way Hong had been being kissed for as long as he could remember and was never, in any lifetime, going to be tired of—and worked his way down Hong’s body in the unhurried careful pattern Hong had memorized. The dip of his collarbone. The soft spot at his sternum. The small place at his ribs that Nut had identified a long time ago. Hong, under him, made small soft sounds and let his hands trail down Nut’s back, and Nut, on top of him, made small soft sounds back.
They had not, technically, done anything they had not done a thousand times before.
It felt—Hong was registering—like the first time.
“Nut.”
“Mm.”
“It is—it is different.”
“Yes.”
“Why is it different.”
“Because we are married.”
“I have heard that word before but suddenly it has a—it has a weight.”
“Mm.”
“Nut.”
“Yes.”
“Marry me.”
“I—I already did.”
“I know. I am asking again.”
“Hong—”
“Marry me, Nut.”
“Yes.”
“Again.”
“Yes again. Yes always. Yes for the rest of my life. Yes.”
“Good.”
He pulled Nut back up. He kissed him, hard. He let Nut, slowly, work him open—slower than slow, the way Nut always did, the way Nut had done in this same bed a hundred times—and Hong, with his arms around Nut’s shoulders and Nut’s forehead pressed against his, kept saying the same word, in the small breathy voice that came out of him at moments like this, over and over.
Husband.
Husband.
Husband.
“Hong, you have to—you have to stop—”
“Can’t.”
“I am—I am barely keeping it together—”
“Husband.”
“Hong—”
“Husband. Husband. Husband.”
“Hong, you are cruel,” Nut said, with his voice cracking and the smallest helpless laugh against Hong’s neck, and Hong, who had not been planning to be cruel—who had genuinely not been able to stop saying the word—just laughed, wet, against Nut’s hair, and pulled him closer.
When Nut pressed in, finally, he did it the way he always did—slow, careful, with both forearms braced on either side of Hong’s head and his forehead pressed against Hong’s. Hong, who had been on the receiving end of this exact entrance more times than either of them could count, made the small breathy sound he always made—and Nut, who had been hearing that sound just as long, made his usual small low sound back. The choreography was old. The words were old. The bodies were old to each other.
The meaning, somehow, was new.
“Husband,” Hong whispered.
“Yes.”
“Move whenever you want.”
“Yes.”
“I have you.”
“I have you.”
Nut moved.
He moved slow. He always moved slow. Tonight slower than slow—like he was trying to make it last as long as possible, like he was aware, also, that something specific about this exact night was not going to come back. Hong, beneath him, with one hand on the back of his neck and the other spread flat across his shoulder blade, kept saying, in a small breathy voice, the things that were coming up out of him without permission.
“Yes. Yes. Yes, husband. Like that. Like that.”
“Hong—”
“I love you. I love you. I have loved you the whole time. I have loved you since the test pastries. Since the test pastries, Nut, since the test pastries—”
“Hong, you cannot bring up the test pastries right now—”
“I have loved you since you opened the door to me with a tray in my hands. I have loved you since you let me sit in the chair by your counter. I have loved you since William and Est’s wedding cake, the—”
“Hong—”
“For two and a half years, Nut. I have loved you for two and a half years. And now I am going to keep loving you for—for forever—for—”
“Hong, please,” Nut said, into his neck, in a wrecked voice. “Please let me finish, I am—I am barely—”
“Right. Sorry. Continue.”
“Hong.”
“Continue, husband.”
Nut, with a damp, helpless laugh, kissed him hard, and went back to what he was doing.
He kept the slow pace. He had always kept the slow pace. Hong, who had always loved him for it, loved him more for it tonight. Nut’s breathing got short. Hong’s hand went tight at the back of his neck. Nut pressed his forehead against Hong’s, his eyes half-closed, and said, in his careful low voice,
“Hong.”
“Yes.”
“Mine.”
“Yes.”
“Whose.”
“Yours.”
“Mine.”
“Yes.”
“Mine, husband.”
“Yours.”
“Yes.”
He moved, in a slightly different way, on the next stroke, and Hong, who had been on the edge for what felt like a long time, started to come apart.
“Nut—”
“Yes.”
“I—I am—”
“Yes.”
“Husband—”
“Go,” Nut said, against his mouth. “Go, Hong, I have you. Go.”
Hong went.
Nut followed almost immediately after, with a small bitten-off sound against Hong’s throat—Hong’s name, sort of, mostly a vowel—and his whole body going tense and then loose over Hong’s. Hong, with both arms wrapped around his back, held him.
They stayed like that for a long time.
The little lights were low and soft. The fan kept turning. Outside, in the city, somewhere far away, a single dog barked once and stopped.
“Nut.”
“Mm.”
“You’re crying.”
“I know.”
“That’s okay.”
“I know.”
“Come here.”
Nut came. He shifted, eventually, off of Hong, and Hong rolled them so that they were lying on their sides, face to face, with their legs tangled and Nut’s hand on Hong’s chest above his heart.
Nut looked at him.
He looked at him for a long time. Hong, who was—also—not totally done crying, looked back.
“Husband,” Hong said. Softly.
“Husband.”
“How are you.”
“Married.”
“Married.”
“It is—it is going to take me a few days.”
“Take a few days.”
“Thank you.”
“Mm.”
“Hong.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for—”
“For what.”
Nut, looking at him, was quiet for a second.
“For everything,” he said. “All of it.”
“Mm.”
“I am—Hong, I am not very good with words right now, I—”
“You do not have to be good with words right now.”
“I know.”
“Just be here.”
“I am here.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
They lay there. Hong’s hand was on Nut’s cheek. Nut’s hand was over Hong’s heart. They could hear each other’s heartbeats; they could hear the faint distant sounds of the very late city; they could see, just barely, the small bouquet of jasmine and heliotrope and a single coral-pink rose on the kitchen counter through the open bedroom door—Apple had refreshed it that morning, somehow, with the rest of the flowers, knowing.
After a long quiet stretch, Nut spoke into the small space between them.
“Hong.”
“Mm.”
“In the morning.”
“In the morning.”
“We get to wake up together.”
“Yes.”
“We get to wake up together for the rest of our lives.”
“Yes.”
“That is a fact now.”
“Yes.”
Nut closed his eyes. He looked, for a second, like he was about to cry again. Hong, who had been waiting for it, kissed his forehead, and Nut, with the kiss against his skin, opened his eyes again and just looked at him.
“Husband,” he said, quietly.
“Husband,” Hong said.
They fell asleep like that, eventually, sometime around three. The last of the little lights dimmed sometime in the night. Outside the open window, the city went on doing what cities did, indifferent and large and entirely unaware of what had been built, that day, in one small banyan-tree courtyard and one small softly lit room.
In the morning there would be coffee, and matcha, and a hundred text messages, and William saying inappropriate things in the friends group chat, and Ploy demanding to know when the flashcards could be delivered.
For now, there was just this.
The two of them.
A married couple. New.
The bouquet of jasmine and heliotrope and one coral-pink rose, slightly visible from the bedroom, doing fine.
The rest of their lives, in front of them, soft and bright and unhurried as a long morning.
end.