Chapter 1

A blue betta fish named Slurpy. That was what finally convinced Phillip to dump my older brother Mizu. Not the countless times they cheated on each other, or the surprising number of holes they had punched through the drywall of their rent house. Nope. It took my brother coming home one night to find that the dishes from the night before still hadn’t been washed, and as payback, he flushed Phillip’s fish down the toilet.

My volatile brother was immensely proud of his actions. When Phillip came home that night, Mizu marched him into the bathroom, pointed to the empty fishbowl on the counter, and unceremoniously announced, “I flushed your fish, fucker.” Only Phillip didn’t react this time. He didn’t scream, punch holes in the wall, or find a pretty girl to fuck on Tinder. He just stared at the toilet, his hands hanging limply at his sides. He told me that he knew in that moment that it was over, because he couldn’t find the motivation to engage with Mizu.

“When you can’t fight, Kuro,” Phillip explained, “that’s when you know that it’s over.”

They didn’t always used to fight, Mizu and Phillip. During our childhood, the three of us played together harmoniously. We spent hours playing pretend outside. In the land of make believe, we were Power Rangers and Jedi Knights, always fighting against evil. On the days the cold was too bitter to bear, we’d spend hours watching Cartoon Network and doodling in coloring books we got from the Dollar Store.

Phillip lived next door with his bougie parents, who were professors at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Shortly after I was born, my mother struggled with postpartum depression, and thought that moving closer to her family would help. My father, although resentful that he would have to give up his life in New York, agreed to make the move when he secured a job at a consulting firm in downtown Minneapolis.

Since I was a baby, I have no memories of the day we moved into our house on 43rdAvenue. But the scrapbooks full of pictures make me think I was actually there that day. My favorite is one of Mizu and Phillip, their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, grinning but squinting at the flash. Phillip’s been a part of my life since before I can even remember. Still, it came as a shock to my mother when we decided to move in together.

You would think that moving in with your brother’s ex-boyfriend so shortly after they separated was a bad idea. And you would be right. But Phillip isn’t just my brother’s ex, he’s also a longtime friend…and crush. When Mizu kicked his ass to the curb, I was getting ready to move into my new apartment. After Phillip called me up and told me what happened, sobbing about his dead betta fish, I felt like my dreams of being with him became that much more attainable. Mizu had his chance to make Phillip happy. Here was mine.

Our Minneapolis apartment sat on the intersection of 15thStreet and LaSalle Avenue, close to my community college. It was a nice area, populated with small businesses and trendy cafes, but the building was anything but nice. The wallpaper was peeling, the sink was leaking, and some of the lightbulbs were shattered. When we moved in, Phillip saw the glass littering the floor of our bathroom and he shook his head.

“We’re paying over a grand a month for this?” he asked, placing his hands on his hips.

“I have spare light bulbs in one of these boxes. I could go dig around for them.”

He shook his head again. “Get me a dustpan first.”

I fetched it from the closet by the front door and gave it to him. As I watched him sweep up the scraps with the pathetically tiny broom, I couldn’t help but feel wracked with anxiety, like somehow this was my fault.

“I’m sorry.”

He looked up at me, surprised. “What, did you smash all the lightbulbs before we moved in?”

“No, I just…do you want me to clean it?” I reached for the broom, but he removed it from my grasp.

He smiled at me. “It’s fine, Kuro.” Sweep, sweep, sweep. “Did we get all the boxes from the car?”

“Yeah, I think I got everything.” Phillip and I didn’t have many belongings, so in total, we moved in about fifteen boxes, three suitcases, and one Gibson guitar—mine. Everything was piled up in our living room beneath the ceiling fan.

“Cool,” he said. “When does your mom want us to swing by with the moving truck?”

“Not until tomorrow morning. She wants us to meet her at the house at ten A.M.”

Phillip dumped the scraps in the trash can. “Okay. Do we have sleeping bags?”

“Yeah, it’s in one of the boxes.”

But of course, when I went to look for them later, they were missing. I stared into boxes full of packing peanuts as if they were a bottomless abyss. I remembered to pack my extra toilet bowl cleaner and Ajax, but essentials like sleeping gear? Nowhere to be found. My chest constricted with panic, wondering where they could have gone. Phillip tapped my shoulder.