Chapter 11: Future Talk
Kyle set his taco down, picked it up again, and decided he needed a moment to breathe. He flagged down the guy at the cart and ordered two more al pastor, mostly for something to do with his hands.
"You want anything else?" he asked Roha. "They do this elote thing that'll change your life. It's, like, a crime how good it is."
"I'm fine."
"You say that now, but you haven't tried the elote."
Roha's mouth twitched. It was almost a smile. Kyle counted it as a win and went to fetch the elote anyway, coming back with two paper cups of corn smothered in crema, chile powder, and a suspicious amount of cotija cheese.
"Here. Trust me."
Roha took a cup. He poked at it with the little plastic fork, a skeptical eyebrow raised. Kyle watched him take the first bite, saw his eyes go a fraction wider, and grinned.
"Told you."
"It's very good," Roha said, which for him was practically a sonnet.
They ate in comfortable silence for a bit. The string lights buzzed overhead, a faint electric hum that blended with the distant traffic. Kyle watched a couple across the street share a churro, laughing at something stupid, and felt a weird pang he didn't want to examine too closely.
"So." Roha set down his fork. His voice was casual, but there was something careful underneath it. "What do you hope for your future?"
Kyle blinked, caught off guard by the weight of the question. He poked at his elote, watching the crema swirl. "Huh. That's a big one for a Thursday night."
Roha waited.
"I don't know, man." Kyle shrugged, scooping up a bite. "I'm kind of an in-the-moment guy. Like, I don't really plan stuff out. I just kinda go with it." He gestured vaguely at the taco stand, the string lights, the city humming around them. "I like my life. I got my friends, I got my job, I got clubs to hit up on the weekend. What more do I need?"
"You don't want anything different?"
"Nah. I mean, sure, I'd like to not be broke all the time. But I'm having fun." He grinned, wide and unguarded. "That's kind of the whole point, right? You only get one life. Might as well enjoy it."
Roha turned that over in his head. It was such a human answer, so fleeting and unbothered. A man with two wishes left in his pocket, and he wanted nothing.
"What about you?" Kyle asked, tilting his head. "What do you hope for your future?"
The question hit Roha like a wall.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. His fork hovered over the elote, frozen. In three thousand years, no one had ever asked him that. Not a single soul. He was the one who granted wishes. He wasn't supposed to have any of his own.
"I..." He trailed off.
Kyle's grin faded. "Roha?"
"I don't know." The words came out rough, unfamiliar. "I've never thought about it."
"Never? Like, not even a little?"
"There wasn't a point." Roha set his fork down, staring at the table. "I've never been in a position where wanting something mattered. I just did what I was bound to do. Fulfilled the contract. Waited for the next one."
The silence stretched. A car passed on the street, headlights sweeping across them.
"So it's always been like that?" Kyle asked quietly. "Just... alone?"
Roha looked up. Kyle's face was open, soft, genuinely concerned. No pity, no judgment. Just that same warmth he'd carried all night, the warmth he gave freely to everyone he met.
"Yes," Roha said. "It has."
Kyle didn't say anything. He just reached across the table and gave Roha's forearm a quick squeeze, warm and solid, then pulled back like it was nothing. Like it was easy.
"It's not that bad," Roha added, though the words felt hollow. "I'm used to it."
"Being used to something doesn't mean it's good." Kyle said it simply, like it was obvious. "I mean, I'm used to my landlord's weird smell in the hallway. Doesn't mean I want it there."
Roha blinked. The analogy was so absurd it nearly broke through the heavy thing sitting in his chest. "Your hallway smells?"
"Like mothballs and regret. It's a whole thing." Kyle grabbed his elote again. "My point is, you're here now. With us. You don't gotta be alone anymore."
The words settled into something deep. Roha felt his breathing change, felt the tightness under his ribs loosen just a fraction. He thought about the lamp in the alley, waiting behind that dumpster. He thought about the two wishes left, about the contract that would pull him away the moment the last one was spoken.
He hadn't thought about that before. Not really. He'd been so focused on getting through each day, on figuring out where he was and what was happening, that he hadn't let himself look ahead.
There was no ahead. There was only the lamp, and the silence, and the long dark wait for someone else to find him.
Kyle was still talking, something about the elote vendor's secret sauce and a bet involving a jalapeño, and Roha was still there, nodding along, when the realization hit him with the weight of a boulder.
He didn't want to go back.
He looked at Kyle's hands, gesturing wildly, at the string lights catching the pink of his hair, and for the first time in his long, long existence, Roha wanted something for himself.
He just had no idea what to do about it.
The elote cups were empty. The string lights buzzed their steady hum. Kyle leaned back on his stool and let out a satisfied groan, patting his stomach.
"Okay. That might be the best meal I've had all week."
Roha nodded, still turning his last thought over in his head. Kyle stood, stretched, and tossed their trash into the bin by the cart.
"You ready to head back?"
Roha rose. The walk was slow, unhurried. The streets had quieted, the late-night traffic thinning to the occasional cab. Kyle talked about the elote, then about a cat he'd seen in a window, then about how the stars looked fake in the city, all plastic light and haze. Roha listened, but his mind kept circling back to the same place.
Kyle had asked what he hoped for his future, and he hadn't been able to answer. He still couldn't. But the question had cracked something open, and now there was this new thing inside him, uncomfortable and warm. A want. He didn't know its shape, didn't know what to do with it, but it was there, breathing.
They reached the apartment building. Kyle stopped under the flickering streetlamp, the same one from the night before, and turned with his hands shoved in his pockets.
"So. Did you have a good time?"
Roha looked at him. The light caught the pink of Kyle's hair, the easy curve of his smile. There was something open in his face, patient, waiting. Roha felt the pull of the friendship magic, but underneath it there was something that was purely his.
"I did," Roha said. His voice came out quieter than he meant it to. "Thank you, Kyle. This time with you today. It's significant. I've never had anything like it."
The words hung between them. Kyle's smile flickered. His eyes went wide, searching Roha's face for something, then took a half-step forward, close enough that the string lights from the taco stand felt like a world away, and kissed him.
It was soft. Quick, at first, like Kyle wasn't sure he'd read the moment right, then slower, more certain. Roha's hands hung at his sides. His mind went blank. No one had ever touched him like this. No one had ever wanted to. The warmth of it spread through his chest, unfamiliar and dizzying.
Kyle pulled back, face flushed, lips parted. "Sorry. I just. You said significant, and I thought you meant. I don't know what you meant. Was that okay?"
Roha couldn't find the words. His whole body felt rearranged. The spot on his mouth where Kyle's lips had been was still tingling, still electric.
He felt himself smile. It wasn't the polite twitch he'd learned to offer. It was real, breaking through centuries of stone.
"Yes," he said. "That was okay."
Kyle stared at him. Then he laughed, bright and nervous, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Cool. Cool cool cool. So. Um. Do you want to come up?"
"Uh. Yeah. Come up." Kyle's voice pitched high at the end, like he'd swallowed a balloon. He fumbled for his keys, dropped them once, caught them on the second try, and pushed the door open.
The stairwell was narrow and smelled like the landlord's casserole from three weeks ago. Kyle took the steps two at a time, heart hammering in his ears. He could hear Roha's footsteps behind him, steady and unhurried, like he hadn't just kissed him on the sidewalk. Like that was just something that happened now.
Kyle's key turned in the lock. The door swung open.
Joaquin was sprawled on the couch, barefoot, wearing sweatpants and a faded shirt that said "I Heart My Golden Retriever." The TV flickered blue across his face, some late-night cooking show. He'd just shoved a forkful of leftover pad thai into his mouth when he looked up.
His eyes landed on Roha.
The fork clattered onto the coffee table. Joaquin sat bolt upright, arms shooting into the air like his team just won the championship.
"YES!" he yelled, voice cracking. "YES! ROHA MY BROHA!"
Kyle froze in the doorway. His face went from pink to tomato to something approaching the color of a fire hydrant in under two seconds flat.
"Oh my god," Kyle whispered.
Joaquin was on his feet now, pumping his fist. "I knew it! I called it! I told him, man. I said you'd be back." He pointed at Kyle, grinning like he'd won the lottery. "And you brought him up. You never bring anyone up this late unless it's gonna be a whole thing."
"It's not a whole thing." Kyle's voice came out a full octave higher than normal. "We just. We were eating elote. It was a nice evening."
"NICE EVENING." Joaquin said it like it was the funniest sentence ever spoken. He turned to Roha, grabbing his shoulder with both hands. "Dude. Welcome. Fridge is open, take whatever, and I promise I'll clear out in exactly one minute."
"Joaquin," Kyle hissed, dying inside. "Shut up."
"Okay, okay. I'm going." Joaquin backed toward his room, still grinning, arms raised like a boxer. "Look at you two. This is beautiful. I'm so proud." He disappeared into his room and shut the door behind him, and Kyle could hear his muffled laugh through the drywall.
Kyle stood in the middle of the living room, wishing the floor would open up and swallow him. "I'm so sorry. He's. There's no excuse for him. He's nineteen mentally."
Roha stood in the middle of the living room, processing. Joaquin's outburst had been loud, physical, and completely unexpected. But the energy behind it, the pure delight in his eyes when he'd seen Roha standing there, that was unmistakable. No one in three thousand years had ever been happy to see him, not the genie, him.