Chapter 5: Breakfast Bargains
David awoke to a sharp elbow in his ribs and the unfamiliar scent of his own sheets mingled with expensive sandalwood soap. For a disoriented second, the warm weight against his back confused him—then memory resolved itself, rich and vivid as the neon light now glowing weakly through the crack in the blinds. Omar was splayed half on top of him, his breathing deep and even, one arm possessively slung across David’s stomach. The sheer domestic comfort of it made something inside David’s chest ache.
He watched a sliver of Los Angeles sunlight cut across the floor, illuminating the dust motes dancing above a pile of discarded drag fabric. He didn’t move.
Omar stirred first. A soft inhale, a tightening of the arm around him, then a slow untangling. David kept his eyes closed, feigning sleep, curious to witness the unobserved moment of waking. He felt Omar shift up onto an elbow, felt the careful, scrutinizing gaze on his face. It lasted a full minute, maybe two. Then, a fingertip traced the faint shape of his eyebrow, a featherlight touch on his temple, over the slight bump on the bridge of his nose where he’d broken it as a kid. It was methodical, tender—more of Omar’s quiet cataloging.
David smiled without opening his eyes. “Taking notes again, engineer?”
Omar’s hand stilled. He didn’t pull away. “Correlating data from different lighting conditions,” he said, his voice a sleep-rough whisper. The finger resumed its path, brushing over David’s lips. “Morning.”
It was a word David knew well, but it had never sounded so much like a whole sentence. They didn’t fuck. There was no frantic morning need, just a slow, thorough exploration. Omar’s mouth was soft and insistent; his hands mapped David’s back, his shoulders, the taut muscles of his stomach as if committing the topography to memory in a new light. It was unhurried. It was shocking in its gentleness.
They washed up in the small, perpetually damp bathroom, passing the toothpaste tube without speaking, their reflections sharing the mirror under the unforgiving fluorescent bulb. David caught Omar looking from his own damp, un-styled hair to David’s, a flicker of a smile on his face, as if marveling at their shared, simple humanity.
In the living room, Rico was already installed at the sewing machine, a cup of steaming black coffee beside him. The loud, steady chunk-chunk-chunk of the needle filled the space. He glanced over his shoulder as they emerged. “The dead have risen,” he observed, his tone flat. “I was about to pour holy water into your kapeng barako, David.”
“Make enough for three, bes,” David said, stretching.
“It is made,” Rico said, nodding toward the French press in the kitchen.
The morning unfolded with a loose, dreamlike cadence. Rico decided to make silog—garlic fried rice, fried eggs, and sweet tocino. He gave Omar a lemon and instructed him to juice it for a side salad while arguing good-naturedly with David over whose playlist would rule. Beyoncé won over Donna Summer.
They ate on the same low table, morning sun now fully flooding the room, bleaching the chaos into something softer. It felt like a dream. Omar, the glossy-buttoned academic, enthusiastically mopping up egg yolk and syrupy meat with his fingers while David explained the concept of “gamit kamay” over bites. Rico watched the exchange with hooded eyes, sipping his coffee from a tattered Power Rangers mug.
When the plates were mostly clean, Omar cleared his throat.
“Thank you. For the food, for last night.” He looked at Rico, then David. “Today, I have some things to buy. Nothing exciting. I need to pick up some books at The Last Bookstore downtown. Not textbooks. Personal research.”
“Research on what?” David asked, intrigued.
“Comparative mythology,” Omar said. “Since last night, I think I have been living with an icon of creation.”
David laughed, shaking his head. Rico’s mouth twitched.
“Then,” Omar continued, “there is a record shop on Sunset I have been wanting to visit. And after that…” He hesitated, a faint pink touching his cheeks. “I was told there is a very good, discreet dispensary in Atwater Village that carries unusual strains. Some have… specific terpene profiles that they say mimic lychee. I wish to see.”
He folded his hands in his lap, a portrait of earnest planning. “If you have nothing to do today, you are welcome to join me. All of you. It would be… nicer.”
The invitation hung in the fragrant air. Rico set his mug down with a definitive clink. He looked at Omar for a long moment, then a slow, genuine smile—the first of its kind he’d ever directed at Omar—spread across his face.
“Well. A scholar, a music aficionado, and a botanist-connoisseur all in one,” Rico said, his voice laced with a new, appreciative tone. He sat back, a queen on his throne of mismatched cushions. “You are Daa man of discerning taste, Omar Hassan.” He picked a stray thread from his own shirt, feigning nonchalance. “The itinerary is appealing. Very appealing.” He looked at David, a wicked glint in his eye. “If he actually purchases something other than textbooks and decent flower, I might let you keep him, anak.”
David kicked Rico under the table—not hard. “He’s not a stray cat, kuya.”
“No, he’s better,” Rico said, standing. “He is a cultural barometer, and I wish to see how he spends his trust fund.”
Omar, to his credit, didn’t rise to the bait. He just watched them, that small, observant smile still in place, enjoying the performance of their friendship.
Rico grabbed his empty plate. “David, wash the dishes from your dalliance. I need a shower and to be a person again before I am seen in public with celebrities.” He winked at Omar. A real wink.
Rico disappeared into the bathroom. The steady thrum of the shower started up a moment later. They were alone. David looked at Omar across the breakfast rubble. Sunlight caught the dust in Omar’s dark hair.
“Was that a test?” David asked quietly. “Myth, music, weed?”
“No,” Omar said. He leaned across the table, his hand finding David’s. His touch was warm, solid. “It’s integration. I want to see the things you would see. I want my records to know the scent of your apartment.” He looked around the chaotic, sunlit room, at the shrine and the sewing machine, his gaze landing on the wine bottles from the night before. “This morning… this is my new starting data. Everything before this feels like an old file format I can no longer open. I want the continuation.”
Outside, the day—a bright, demanding Los Angeles Saturday—was starting up: cars blaring horns, someone laughing on the sidewalk below, the city stretching its steel-and-concrete muscles. But in the small, crowded space, time felt thick and sweet and theirs for the shaping.
The shower stopped, and Rico emerged in a cloud of steam and rich oud-scented cologne—a concession to their guest, David knew. He swept past them, heading for his room, his parting comment drifting back. “Twenty minutes. If he spends more than fifty dollars on Philip Roth, you are morally obligated to bring him home. We need more trashy romances and Murakami for contrast.”
Then Rico excused himself, leaving David and Omar to the quiet sunlit calm, the unspoken question of the day before them, waiting to be answered not with words, but with the steady progression of a shared, ordinary, monumental afternoon about to begin.
The silence after Rico’s door clicked shut was liquid and warm. David could feel the city’s pulse through the floorboards, a distant thrum against the soles of his bare feet. He looked at their hands, still linked across the sticky table. Omar’s fingers were tracing his knuckles, a thoughtful, repeating pattern.
“So,” David said, squeezing back. “A day in the life of Omar Hassan. Books, music, weed.” He pulled his hand away to start gathering plates, the clatter breaking the spell. “We should probably get dressed. Rico will be out in fifteen looking like a defeated but gorgeous movie star, and we’ll still be in our pajamas.”
Omar stood, helping clear the table without being asked. “This is dressed,” he said, gesturing to his UCLA sweatshirt and dark jeans.
David stopped at the sink, holding two plates. He gave Omar a slow, appraising look from head to toe. The clothes were fine. They were clean, expensive even. They were also utterly devoid of any character, a uniform meant for invisibility. “You’re kidding, diba?” he said, a plan crystallizing in his mind. “We are doing your errands. But after? I’m taking you shopping.”
Omar froze, a fork in his hand. “Shopping.”
“Yes, shopping,” David said, turning on the water. The steam rose, fogging the window. “Your wardrobe is… very competent. Very ‘I am a serious person who studies fracture mechanics.’” He scrubbed a plate with more vigor than needed. “But it tells me nothing about you. The you who likes weird manga and discomusic and wants to smell like lychee.”
Omar was quiet for a beat. “You want to change how I dress.” It wasn’t a question. His tone was neutral, analytical.
David turned off the tap, facing him. Water dripped from his wrists onto the linoleum. “No. I want to help you express it. There’s a difference.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “The clothes you wear here, in L.A., in my apartment… they can be a different dataset. They don’t have to be the same as the ones you wear anywhere else.”
He saw the understanding dawn in Omar’s eyes, followed by a flicker of something thrilling—trepidation mixed with desire. It was the same look he’d had before stepping into The Velvet Mirage. A precipice.
“Okay,” Omar said. The word was simple, but the surrender in it was vast.
“Okay,” David echoed, a grin breaking across his face.
The Last Bookstore was a cathedral of scent—old paper, polished wood, dust. They wove through labyrinthine shelves made of stacked books, past the famous book archway. Rico had opted to meet them later, citing a need for “serious fabric procurement” without an audience.
Omar moved with a focused reverence, his fingers skipping over spines in the mythology section. He pulled out a thick, cloth-bound volume on Mesopotamian creation myths. “It’s for the comparative framework,” he explained, almost shyly. “Your stories of Bakunawa, the serpent eating the moons… I want to see the patterns.”
“So I’m a case study,” David teased, leaning against a shelf.
“You are the catalyst,” Omar corrected without looking up, his voice quiet but firm. He found another book, this one on queer coded archetypes in folklore. He held it, considering. “The reaction is my own.”
David felt a flush of warmth that had nothing to do with the store’s stuffy air. He watched Omar go to pay, the elegant sweep of his credit card effortless. The cashier, a woman with purple hair and multiple facial piercings, bagged the books without comment.
Outside, the downtown light was harsh. Omar blinked, holding the bag close to his chest like a shield. “One down,” David said, slipping on his sunglasses. “Where next, boss?”
The record store on Sunset was a dim cave vibrating with a buried bassline from the listening booth. Omar beelined for the electronic section, his earlier hesitancy gone. He flipped through crates with a scholar’s intensity, pulling out obscure German kosmische musik from the 70s and early Warp Records twelve-inches.
“You know these?” David asked, surprised, holding a sleeve adorned with geometric, minimalist art.
“Theoretical,” Omar said, taking it from him. His thumb brushed David’s. “The textures. The repetition. It is like applied mathematics for the soul.” He bought three, his choices precise and uncompromising.
The dispensary in Atwater Village was all soft lighting and quiet efficiency. Omar spoke to the budtender about terpene profiles and myrcene levels with the same calm authority he’d used on the refinery accident. He selected a small jar of small-batch flower called “Lychee Dream,” paying in crisp cash. David leaned against a display case, content to watch him in his element, this sharp, soft man moving through worlds.
Back on the sunny sidewalk, the disparate purchases in Omar’s tote bag, David slung an arm around his shoulders. “You’re full of surprises, you know that?”
Omar leaned into the touch, just slightly. “The objective data is often misleading.”
“So is the subjective,” David said. He stopped walking, turning Omar to face him. The afternoon sun painted Omar’s face in gold. “Ready for your final experiment?”
Omar took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders under David’s arm. “Protocol?”
“Observation. Interaction. A little chaos.” David grinned. “We’re going to a thrift store. My thrift store.”
The Vintage Vault smelled of cedar balls, faded perfume, and possibility. Racks of clothes stood like a rainbow army, organized by color, not by gender. David led Omar past the silk blouses and crushed velvet jackets, back to the men’s section, though the term felt irrelevant here.
“Don’t think,” David instructed, running a hand along a rack of vintage bowling shirts. “Feel. What color do you want to touch? What texture looks like it would hold you?”
Omar stood still, his analytical gaze scanning the dense forest of fabric. He looked overwhelmed. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Here.” David pulled out a shirt. It was a soft, faded mustard yellow, with subtle embroidered peacocks along the placket. “This. It’s soft. The color is warm. It’s… confident, but quiet.” He pressed it into Omar’s hands. “Go try it on. Just this. We’ll build from there.”
Omar disappeared into a fitting room. David leaned against the wall, listening to the rustle of fabric, the pause, the zip. When the curtain slid back, David’s breath hitched.
The shirt fit Omar perfectly across his broad shoulders, skimming his soft stomach. The color brought out the warmth in his skin, made his dark eyes deeper. He looked at himself in the mirror, a strange, foreign wonder on his face. He looked like a different person. Or rather, he looked like a more complete version of the person David had glimpsed over coffee and wine and morning sunlight.
“Okay?” David asked, his voice quieter now.
Omar turned, looking at David’s reflection behind him. “It’s… it’s me.” He said it with a kind of shocked revelation.
“It is,” David said, stepping closer. He reached around Omar, his chest brushing Omar’s back, and pointed to a pair of wide-legged, cream-colored linen trousers on a nearby rack. “Those. With this.” He fetched them, handing them over. The curtain closed again.
This time, when Omar emerged, the transformation was profound. The high-waisted trousers lengthened his line, the soft drape of the fabric elegant and comfortable. Coupled with the peacock shirt, he looked like a young poet-philosopher from another decade, someone who discussed revolutions in smoky cafes. He looked beautiful.
Omar stared at his full-length reflection, turning slowly. A slow smile bloomed on his face, a real one, uninhibited and dazzling. “David,” he breathed.
David felt a fierce, possessive joy surge in his chest. “See? Data.” He waved a hand at the mirror. “Look at that. That’s you.”
They spent an hour. David became a curator, pulling pieces: a deep green corduroy jacket with patched elbows, a silk scarf with a geometric print, a simple black t-shirt made of the softest pima cotton. Omar tried them all, his initial hesitation melting into a giddy experimentation. In a charcoal vintage suit jacket, he looked like a brilliant, off-duty academic. In a pink oxford cloth button-down, he looked sweet, approachable.
He bought it all. When the total was rung up, a number that would have made David gasp, Omar didn’t blink. He just handed over his card. “It is an investment,” he said to David, as they hauled the stuffed garment bags out to the car. “In a new variable.”
The sun was dipping low, painting the sky in streaks of orange and purple as they loaded the bags into Omar’s sleek, silent electric car. The scent of new-old clothes filled the space.
“Where to now?” Omar asked, sliding into the driver’s seat. He was still wearing the peacock shirt and linen trousers. He seemed unwilling to take them off.
David looked at him, at the soft hope in his eyes, at the bags filled with a new skin in the backseat. The planned day was over. The errands were done. The momentum, however, was still building, a current pulling them forward.
“Your place,” David said, the decision solidifying as he spoke. “I want to see your closet. I want to see what we’re replacing.” He wanted to see the sterile world these new clothes would enter. He wanted to be there for the collision.
Omar’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He nodded once, a sharp, decisive motion. He started the car, the only sound a soft electronic hum. As they pulled into the flowing traffic, David reached over and laid his hand on Omar’s thigh, feeling the coarse, beautiful texture of the linen under his palm.
Omar covered David’s hand with his own, interlacing their fingers, and drove them towards the stark, ordered silence of his apartment, a silence now destined to be shattered by the rustle of peacock feathers and the soft, certain weight of a new, chosen self.
The electric car ghosted up into the underground garage, its silence amplifying the thrum of David’s own anticipation. The pristine concrete, the ranked luxury vehicles, the filtered air—it all felt like entering a high-tech bunker. Omar’s grip on his hand hadn’t loosened during the drive, a constant, warm pressure.
“You’re quiet,” Omar said as the elevator ascended, its doors reflecting their distorted images: David, leaning against the wall; Omar, standing stiffly, the garment bags a rustling fortress around him.
“Just thinking about your reaction to the peacock shirt,” David murmured, watching Omar’s reflection smile. “You looked at yourself like you’d discovered a new law of physics.”
“I had,” Omar said. The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open onto the familiar, hushed hallway.
The apartment door sighed closed behind them, sealing them in that sterile, temperature-controlled stillness. The sunset bled across the minimalist furniture, painting the grey walls in temporary, bloody light. Omar carefully laid the garment bags over the back of the sofa, a splash of textured color against the monochrome.
“Okay,” David said, rubbing his hands together, a performer ready for the main act. “Closet audit. I need to see the enemy.” He aimed for lightness, but his pulse was quick.
Omar led him to the bedroom. He opened the large, handle-less wardrobe door with a soft click.David stared.
His mind, prepped for a perhaps boring but adequate collection, went utterly blank. Then it recoiled. It wasn’t a closet. It was a storage unit for a uniform. On one side, hanging with mechanical precision, were five identical black UCLA hoodies. Next to them, five identical grey UCLA t-shirts. Then, two pairs of trousers: one jeans, one brown corduroy. A single, plain white dress shirt hung isolated at the end, like a ghost. Below, on a shelf, two pairs of sneakers: one black, one white. All new, all unworn beyond rotation.
There were no other colors.No patterns. No textures besides cotton fleece and denim.No personality. It was the wardrobe of someone who had consciously erased any possibility of choice, of a statement, of a stumble.
“My god,” David breathed. The words came out stripped of all their usual playful baritone. He stepped closer, as if examining a crime scene. He touched a hoodie sleeve. It was soft, expensive cotton. It felt like a surrender. “Omar. Anak. This is… this is a parameter. A controlled variable.”
He turned, his heart cramping. Omar stood a few feet away, his hands clasped in front of him, his face carefully neutral, but his eyes held a brittle shame. He looked like he was awaiting a debrief, or a diagnosis.
“It’s efficient,” Omar offered, his voice small in the vast, quiet room.
“It’s a prison!” The exclamation tore out of David, louder than he intended. He gestured at the open closet, then at the beautiful, unique clothes piled on the sofa in the other room. “This isn’t you. The man who picks out lychee-terpene weed and German electronic music does not live here.” He pointed at the clothes. “That man lives there. In the peacock shirt.”
Omar flinched. “It’s just easier. It’s one less thing to think about. One less… signal to send.”
David understood then. It wasn’t just efficiency. It was camouflage. It was a defensive perimeter built in fabric, a way to move through the world without transmitting a single frequency that could be traced, interpreted, judged. The sheer, devastating scope of that self-erasure hit David in the gut.
He crossed the space in two strides. He didn’t hug him. He grabbed Omar’s shoulders, forcing him to meet his eyes. “Listen to me. You are not a signal to be minimized. You are a fucking broadcast.” His voice dropped, intense and low. “And I want to hear every single channel. The happy one, the sad one, the silly one, the smart one, the one that wants to wear pink or green or gold fucking lamé.”
Omar’s neutral mask shattered. His eyes glistened, hisOmar covered David’s hand with his own, interlacing their fingers, and drove them towards the stark, ordered silence of his apartment, a silence now destined to be shattered by the rustle of peacock feathers and the soft, certain weight of a new, chosen self. The garage was a tomb of concrete and polished steel, their footsteps echoing like dropped tools as they gathered the overflowing garment bags. The elevator music was a bland, wordless sigh. Omar’s door opened with a hushed click, and the cool, filtered air washed over them, carrying only a faint trace of the lemon-scented cleaner used by the weekly maid.
The vast living room was exactly as David remembered: a museum exhibit titled ‘Solitary Life.’ The sun, setting now, painted long, lonely rectangles on the flawless gray floor. David dropped the bags onto the immense sectional sofa, a dark island in the empty space. The vibrant fabric looked like a wound, an beautiful infection of color.
“Okay,” David said, rubbing his hands together, the energy of the thrift store still buzzing in his veins. “Let’s see the battlefield. Show me the closet. The before picture.”
Omar paused, his fingers still hooked in the belt loops of his new linen trousers. A flicker of that old hesitation returned, the one from before the stage door, before the coffee. “It is just a closet,” he said, his voice flat.
“It’s data,” David countered, echoing Omar’s own term. He walked towards the bedroom, not waiting for permission.
The bedroom was worse. The bed was made with military precision, the only personal item a sleek, charging laptop on the nightstand. David went straight to the large, sliding door closet and pulled it open.
He stared.
His brain refused to process the image at first. It was too simple, too barren. He blinked.
On one side hung a single, stark black suit in a garment bag, untouched. On the other side, the daily wear was arranged with a chilling efficiency: four identical black UCLA hoodies. Five identical gray UCLA t-shirts. One pair of dark wash jeans, one pair of brown corduroy pants. One white, non-descript button-down shirt, the kind bought in a three-pack. On the floor, two pairs of sneakers: one for running, one casual. That was it.
David’s heart didn’t sink; it clenched. This wasn’t minimalism. This was erasure. A uniform for a ghost. The vibrant, curious man who had debated terpene profiles and Mesopotamian myths had been living inside this hollow, monochrome capsule. The sheer scale of the omission was a physical shock.
“Omar,” David said, his voice strangely quiet. He turned.
Omar stood in the doorway, his posture defensive, his arms crossed over the beautiful peacock shirt. He looked like a transplant from another universe, suddenly beamed into this sterile cell. He said nothing.
“This is it?” David asked, gesturing at the closet. “This is all of it?”
“It is sufficient,” Omar replied, his tone analytical, detached. “It requires no thought. Laundry is simple. It is… efficient.”
David stepped closer, into Omar’s space, forcing eye contact. “Efficient for what? For disappearing?” He reached out and touched the embroidered peacock on Omar’s chest. “This is you. That,” he jabbed a finger toward the closet, “that’s a shadow. That’s what you wear when you’re trying to take up zero space. When you’re trying to be the invisible orphan with the inheritance, just studying his cracks.”
Omar flinched. The word ‘orphan’ hung in the air, sharp and real. He looked from David’s fierce, pained face to the closet, and for the first time, David saw a crack in the analytical facade—not of sadness, but of shame.
“It is just easier,” Omar whispered.
“Bullshit,” David said, soft but firm. He took Omar’s face in his hands. “Nothing about you is easy. Your mind isn’t easy. Your curiosity isn’t easy. This,” he shook his head toward the clothes, “this is a cage. You built a cage that matches the walls so you wouldn’t have to notice you were in one.”
Omar’s eyes were wide, vulnerable. He leaned into David’s touch, a silent admission.
David dropped his hands, turning back to the offensive closet. A resolution, hard and clear, solidified in his gut. He started pulling the hoodies off the hangers, folding them with quick, decisive motions.
“What are you doing?” Omar asked, alarm cutting through his shame.
“We are integrating the data sets,” David said, not stopping. He carried the stack of identical clothes to the bed. He went back for the t-shirts, the jeans, the single sad button-down. He made a neat, dull pile on the pristine duvet. It looked pathetic. Small.
Then he strode back to the living room, grabbed the bursting garment bags, and hauled them into the bedroom. He unzipped them with a violent rip, releasing the scent of cedar and history and possibility. He began hanging the mustard shirt, the green corduroy jacket, the pink oxford, the charcoal blazer. He filled the empty space with color, with texture, with choice.
The closet transformed. The black suit now looked like a relic next to a silk scarf. The two pairs of sneakers were flanked by the new, soft-soled loafers they’d bought.
David stood back, panting slightly. He pointed at the pile on the bed. “That goes in a box. In storage. You keep one hoodie for when you’re sad and want to feel like a cloud. The rest?” He looked at Omar. “You don’t wear uniforms here anymore. You wear questions. You wear answers. You wear whatever the fuck you feel like.”
Omar stared at the transformed closet. He looked from the vibrant array to the forlorn pile on his bed, his life divided into two distinct phases. His throat worked. “And if I do not know what I feel like?”
David crossed the room and took his hand. “Then you look in here,” he said, tapping Omar’s chest, “and you pick the color that matches. And if you can’t find it, you call me. And I’ll help you look.”
Omar’s fingers tightened around his. He nodded, once, a deep, final acceptance. He let out a long, shuddering breath, as if exhaling the ghost he’d been dressed as for years. He turned and faced the open closet, his new archive, his chosen skin hanging silently in the twilight.
“Start now,” David said, his voice a low murmur against Omar’s shoulder. “Pick something for tomorrow. For when you wake up.”
Omar didn’t hesitate. He reached past the new shirts, past the elegant trousers. His hand found the simple, impossibly soft black pima cotton tee. He pulled it from the hanger, holding the fabric to his face for a moment. Then he chose the cream linen trousers from the day. He laid them carefully on a chair.
“For the morning,” he said. It was a declaration.
David looked at the chosen outfit, then at the pile of uniforms on the bed, soon to be boxed away. The silence in the apartment was no longer empty. It was thick with the echoes of falling walls, full of the promise of a man finally breathing, unconstrained, in a space that was now, truly, his own.