Chapter 21: Pizza and Promises
The apartment door swung open and Kyle walked in still holding Roha's hand. He was grinning like he'd just won something, and judging by the way Roha's fingers were loosely tangled with his, maybe he had.
Joaquin was sprawled on the couch in the same spot he'd been in earlier, scrolling through his phone. He looked up, caught sight of them, and his whole face split into a delighted grin.
"Well, well, well," Joaquin said, tossing his phone aside. "Look who decided to come home together. You two have a nice little reunion, or what?"
Kyle rolled his eyes, but he didn't let go of Roha's hand. "We went to the beach."
"The beach." Joaquin sat up, eyebrows climbing. "Romantic. Very romantic. Did you write your names in the sand? Share a blanket? Build a sand castle shaped like a heart?"
"We talked," Kyle said, but he was fighting a smile.
"Uh-huh. Sure. That's what they all say." Joaquin waved a hand at Roha. "Good to see you, man. Kyle came back earlier looking like somebody ran over his dog, so I'm glad you fixed whatever was broken."
Something flickered across Roha's face, a hint of guilt that he smoothed over quickly. "We talked things through."
"See, that's what I like to hear." Joaquin stretched, popping his back. "So what now? You two gonna stand in the doorway holding hands forever, or you wanna come in and hang out?"
Kyle took a breath. He'd been rehearsing this in his head the whole walk back, and it still felt weird coming out. "Hey, Joaquin. Roha's gonna stay with us for a little while. Is that cool with you?"
Joaquin's grin widened until it looked almost physically impossible. He looked at Kyle, then at Roha, then back at Kyle. "Dude. Are you asking me if my best friend's boyfriend can crash at our place?"
"He's not my boyfriend," Kyle said quickly, at the exact same moment Roha said nothing and just watched the exchange with an unreadable expression.
"Yet." Joaquin winked. "Yeah, man, it's totally cool. Roha, my dude, make yourself right at home."
Roha dipped his head, a small, deliberate motion. "Thank you, Joaquin. For the hospitality. I do not take it lightly."
Joaquin waved him off, already reaching for his phone. "Aw, man, don't get all formal on me. You're one of us now. You're more than welcome to crash here, at least until you get sick of Kyle's snoring."
"I do not snore," Kyle said.
"You absolutely snore."
"I absolutely don't."
Roha looked between them, a ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth. Joaquin pointed at him triumphantly.
"See? Even he knows." Joaquin was already scrolling through a delivery app. "Alright, I'm ordering pizza. You guys want the usual? Pepperoni and pineapple, extra cheese, the works?"
"My usual has never involved pineapple," Kyle said.
"Your usual is about to, because I'm the one paying." Joaquin winked at Roha. "You good with that, magic man? Or do you have some kind of ancient dietary law against pineapple?"
Roha considered the question with far more seriousness than it deserved. "I have no strong feelings about pineapple."
"Perfect. One controversial pizza, coming right up."
Kyle tugged Roha's hand and led him toward the hallway. "We're gonna go, uh, work on some stuff. Call us when it gets here."
"Work on some stuff," Joaquin repeated, not looking up from his phone. "Sure, dude. Real important stuff. Got it."
Kyle ignored him and pulled Roha into the bedroom, shutting the door on Joaquin's quiet snickering.
The room was exactly as Kyle had left it. Messy sheets, a pile of laundry in the corner, the sad elephant-shaped water stain watching from the ceiling. He dropped onto the bed and grabbed a notebook from his nightstand, flipping to a blank page.
"Okay," he said, tapping the pen against his chin. "Let's do this."
Kyle wrote at the top of the page in big block letters: KYLE'S BIG WISH. Then he underlined it twice.
"Okay, so big picture first." He tapped the pen against the paper. "One: you're free from the lamp. Two: you don't disappear when you're free. Three: you get a real identity, papers, all that stuff so you can actually live here."
Roha sat on the edge of the bed, watching the page like it might bite him. "That's a solid foundation."
"Right?" Kyle grinned and kept writing. "Now let's get into the fun stuff."
He added a fourth bullet point. Then a fifth. His handwriting got messier as he went.
"Four: you get a decent bank account. Nothing too crazy, just enough to get started. Five: your apartment is close by so we can hang out all the time. Six: you have great credit. Seven: you never get a cold again. Eight: you always look good in photos."
Roha tilted his head. "Kyle."
"What? Nine: you're really good at dancing. Like, unfairly good. Ten: you'll never be late to anything. Eleven: you can open any jar. Twelve: dogs love you."
"Kyle." Roha's voice was patient but pointed. "The magic works best with a single, cohesive theme. Clauses that wander too far could dilute the intent."
Kyle waved the pen dismissively. "No bad ideas in the planning stage, my dude. We'll trim the fat later. This is brainstorming. Creative flow. Innovation."
Roha let out a long breath that might have been a suppressed laugh. "Innovation."
"Yeah. Like a startup, but for your whole life." Kyle added another bullet point. "Thirteen: you're never stuck behind a slow walker on the sidewalk."
"That has never once happened to me."
"Yet. That's the beauty of preventive wishing." Kyle scribbled another line. "Fourteen: you always get the perfect temperature shower. Fifteen: your phone battery never dies in an emergency."
Roha watched him write, an odd expression settling on his face. Something between amusement and disbelief. "Do you intend to draft an entire legal code as a single wish?"
Kyle looked up, grinning. "Maybe. Depends on how snacky I get."
He capped the pen and held the notebook up, admiring his work. The page was nearly full now, cramped little lines covering the margins, arrows connecting related thoughts, a doodle of a corn dog in the corner for good luck.
"What about a job?" Kyle asked. "Like, do you have a dream profession or anything? I've got some ideas, if you want them."
Roha raised an eyebrow. "You have ideas."
"Oh, I have so many ideas." Kyle set the notebook down and started counting on his fingers. "Sexy firefighter. Sexy doctor. Sexy IT guy. Sexy professor. Sexy barista. Sexy librarian. Sexy dog walker."
Roha stared at him for a long moment. "Every single one of those is preceded by the word 'sexy.'"
"Yeah, and? That's the important part."
"I don't have strong preferences regarding my profession," Roha said slowly. "I've never considered the question. For thousands of years, my purpose was serving masters. The concept of choosing a trade for my own satisfaction is foreign to me."
Kyle's grin softened. He set the pen down and scooted closer, bumping his shoulder against Roha's.
"Okay, then that's a clause we gotta add. 'Roha gets to figure out what he likes without pressure.' Whatever that looks like."
Roha's mouth twitched. "Is that within the scope of a single wish?"
"It is now." Kyle picked up the pen again. "We're doing the biggest, most over-engineered wish in the history of wishes. It's gonna cover everything. Job stuff, home stuff, future stuff. You'll have room to figure your life out without being a genie anymore."
Roha was quiet. Kyle kept writing, adding more bullets, crossing out a few, drawing arrows between related thoughts. The page got messier and more hopeful as it went.
"Kyle." Roha's voice dropped, quieter now. "There is one thing I need you to include."
Kyle looked up. "Yeah? Name it."
Roha met his eyes, and something in his expression shifted. The ancient weight he usually carried settled heavier across his shoulders.
"You will not be hurt by the outcome of the wish," Roha said. "No matter what happens. If the magic untangles differently than we expect, if something goes wrong, you can still be happy. That's my only ask."
Kyle's pen hovered over the page. His chest went tight.
"Roha."
"Please, Kyle. This is important to me. I don't want you to feel bad or guilty if it doesn't work out the way we hope."
Kyle stared at the notebook. The pen felt heavy in his hand. Part of him wanted to argue, to say that this wasn't about responsibility, that he wanted to feel everything that came with this, the good and the bad. But he also saw the look on Roha's face. That quiet, earnest plea. The kind of thing you didn't fight.
"Okay," Kyle said. He wrote it down at the bottom of the page, underlining it twice. "You will not be hurt by the outcome of the wish."
Roha exhaled, a slow release of tension. "Thank you."
"Yeah, don't thank me yet. We still have to make this thing bulletproof." Kyle capped the pen and held the notebook up like a trophy. "This is going to be the most airtight wish in supernatural history. They're gonna talk about this wish for centuries."
"I don't think wishes are studied like historical documents."
"They will be after this one."
A knock on the door cut through the moment. Joaquin's voice came through muffled. "Yo, you two decent in there?"
Kyle scrambled off the bed, clutching the notebook to his chest like it held state secrets. The pen clattered to the floor. He didn't bend down to grab it. He just stood there, wide-eyed, looking guilty as sin.
The door swung open. Joaquin leaned against the frame, arms crossed, a knowing grin spreading across his face.
"What are you two up to?"
"Nothing," Kyle said, a little too fast.
Joaquin's eyebrows shot up. "Oh yeah? Whatcha doing with that notebook?"
Kyle's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. A solid three seconds of nothing but static until the word finally came out.
"Uuuuhhhhhh... poetry?"
Dead silence.
Roha, still sitting on the bed, looked at Kyle with the calm, patient expression of a man who had watched empires crumble and had decided this moment was no less absurd. He said nothing.
Joaquin's grin grew impossibly wide. "Poetry. You're writing poetry. In your bedroom. At midnight."
"People write poetry at all hours, man. It's called inspiration."
"Oh, I bet it is." Joaquin stepped closer, hands raised mockingly. "Let me read it. Come on. I want to experience the raw artistic vision."
"No."
"Just one stanza. I'm a poetry guy, I'll be gentle."
"It's not done yet. It's, uh, messy. Rough drafts are private. That's like, the first rule of being a writer."
Joaquin lunged. Kyle yelped and spun, holding the notebook over his head. Joaquin jumped, swiping at it, laughing hard enough that he nearly toppled over.
"Come on, man! Let me see the masterpiece!"
"It's not a masterpiece yet! You're gonna ruin the creative flow!"
"Your creative flow sounds like it needs some constructive criticism."
Roha watched them with his head tilted, like a man observing a strange new species. Kyle dodged left, Joaquin followed, and they circled the bed once, then twice, Joaquin's laughter filling the room.
"You're gonna tear the page!" Kyle yelled, clutching the notebook tight to his belly.
"Then hand it over and I won't have to!"
"Never!"
Joaquin made one final grab, missed, stumbled over the pile of laundry, and collapsed onto the bed laughing. He didn't get up. He just lay there, wheezing, one arm thrown over his face.
"Alright, alright," he gasped. "I give up. Keep your secret poetry, Shakespeare. But the pizza's here, and if you don't come grab a slice while it's hot, I'm eating your share."
He hauled himself off the bed and headed for the door, patting Kyle on the shoulder on the way out.
"Looking forward to your poetry reading, though. I'll bring candles."
The door swung shut behind him. Kyle stayed frozen for another moment, notebook pressed to his chest, heart hammering.
Roha spoke up quietly. "You understand that I cannot let you phrase the wish, 'and Joaquin never mentions the poetry again.'"
Kyle exhaled, a broken laugh escaping him. "I'm adding it to the draft anyway."