House in Limbo City, Limbo City, Friday

[spin_kick_snap]

With her mom's kimchi recipe now in her possession, Kathy figured she should try to make some. Without a proper kimchi fridge, she couldn't make much, but she figured she could probably get away with one or two jars in the back of the fridge. With her mom's recipe in hand, her children behind her and the gijesa of her whole family on Monday (though her parents got short shrift compared to Sarah), family was kind of on her mind a lot.

Her usual strawberry Yakult had been swapped for banana milk and she had a bowl of injulmi rice balls to snack on when her hands weren't covered with red pepper flakes or salt. She sang as she worked, TARA and BTS and Super Junior blaring from her phone, dancing around the kitchen chopping vegetables, salting water, simmering the glutinous rice powder.

For the first time since she moved in, the house - or, at least, the kitchen - really smelled like home.

[Open for visitors or phone calls or them guys what live here!]

Comments

[smilestopscars]

And for Ezra, every second of seeing her as a patently unfair ghost version of herself had been too much.

So:

"I don't know."

[spin_kick_snap]

"He left pretty fast," Kathy said quietly. "So...yeah. Maybe not."

Probably not. She'd hoped but...

Yeah.

[smilestopscars]

"He left a note."

Which Ezra had carefully preserved, at home.

"But I don't think that means he hurt any less."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Probably just the opposite," Kathy agreed. "I don't think I've ever skipped out on a goodbye in favor of a note unless I just couldn't say goodbye at all."

She paused and then asked, "What did the note say? Or, umm, was it just for you?" In which case, she'd respect his privacy.

[smilestopscars]

"That he loved him and missed him."

It'd been 'you', of course. But it was just a tiny bit easier to roll this back onto the shoulders of an Ezra long gone.

"And some other things he'd crossed out that I haven't tried to read."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy could read between the lines well enough to guess that a note that was left behind had probably said 'you' and not 'him.' But that's who Zeke had really been talking to anyway; his dad and not the Ezra she was talking to.

"Are you going to try?" Kathy asked. "If it'll be easier with someone there..."

[smilestopscars]

"I don't know yet." That bit was said with a more sigh-y quality, but then his tone took on a gently teasing air. "Are you a pair of glasses, darling? I don't think a person being there will make it any easier or harder."

[spin_kick_snap]

"No, but I speak Korean in case there's any on there," Kathy pointed out. "Since I know Zeke spoke it."

[smilestopscars]

"Was it more than a couple of words' worth, though?" Ezra replied. "I doubt his Korean is much better than my Japanese."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Hey now, don't underestimate my willingness to teach my kids multiple languages so they don't just end up stuck with English," Kathy said. "You don't speak much Japanese? Does anyone in your family?"

[smilestopscars]

"Mom," he said, "but she never made much of a point of speaking it to us."

Suppose they'd already had enough setting them apart from the people around them.

[spin_kick_snap]

Yeah, it was probably different when you grew up in a section of a city named for your family's country of origin.

Which was why Kathy was nodding slightly. "Well, even if there isn't much Korean there, I'd be willing to be there if you thought it'd be easier with someone there for support and/or baked goods delivery. If not though..." Kathy shrugged. Zeke hadn't left the note for her, after all. "If not, I get it."

[smilestopscars]

"Darling, you're welcome to see the note," Ezra told her, a little more quietly. Zeke was her kid as much as he was his, after all - maybe even more so, considering who'd done most of the raising. "But I don't need anyone holding my hand to read it."

He just didn't know whether he even wanted to or not.

[spin_kick_snap]

"No, I just thought..." Kathy trailed off, spreading the radish mix over the cabbage leaves. Them more briskly, "Forget it. I was fussing. Bad habit."

[smilestopscars]

Ezra closed his eyes.

"You can't make everyone and everything better all the time, darling."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I know," Kathy said with a sardonic laugh. "Believe me, I am aware."

She could write a manifesto on the topic to rival Anders' on mages' rights at this point.

"Like I said, forget it."

[smilestopscars]

Ezra was quiet for a moment.

Then he said, "Well. Just wanted to check in." Because he really wasn't sure where to go from here. He was still exhausted from the weekend (or from running away from it for a few days) and... some more unhelpful urges were trying to bubble up.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy bit back the desire to explain she wasn't being passive-aggressive, that she understood she couldn't fix things, but sometimes it was just nice to have someone where who'd understand, just to be near. But when had word-walling ever done anything but make things worse?

"Appreciate it," she said quietly. "Really. Glad you did. And I'll make sure you get a jar or two of experimental kimchi some time."

[smilestopscars]

Ezra already knew it, anyway, that could be nice, sometimes, to have a person around for something like that.

He also knew he'd said he didn't want it.

"Thank you, darling."

[spin_kick_snap]

"My pleasure," she said, smile tilting the edges of her mouth again. "It's actually really soothing, so...yeah."

It genuinely was.

[smilestopscars]

"I suppose Lock and I will have to wait and see whether we agree."

At least he halfway sounded like he was smiling a little?

He was worn down.

[spin_kick_snap]

A little was better than not at all. Sometimes, the only way to judge progress was by how much better you were doing than the last time you checked.

At least, that had been Kathy's experience.

"Let me know a time when it's cool for me to bring it over," she said. "Unless you'd rather I try interdimensional mail."

[smilestopscars]

"I can let you know," Ezra promised. "After you let me know when it's done."

He didn't know what the rules were on transporting kimchi when it wasn't yet ready for eating. If there were any.

[spin_kick_snap]

Don't drop it? Kimchi was pretty easy that was.

"About two weeks, unless you don't mind it taking up fridge space before then," she said. "I mean, you can pretty much eat it whenever, but it'll be best in about two weeks. So check your calendar about then and we'll schedule a kimchi delivery."

Beat.

"...Or, if that doesn't work with you, further out is okay. Kimchi lasts."

[smilestopscars]

"My calendar's pretty flexible." To someone else, he might've added a reflexive 'just like me', but with her... Nah. "We can probably fix a date closer to the two-week mark. Nothing in our fridge lasts long enough for it to make any sense to have it there earlier than when it's ready."