"Bring her over!"

  Struggling to keep his patience as he shoved a pan of red date pudding into the steamer, Vicente asked for what was probably the hundredth time, "but why?"

  Yao's voice was muffled slightly over the sound of sizzling as he tossed bean sprouts and hard tofu in a wok. "You never stop talking about her. You're always 'Madeline this' and 'Madeline that' and I want to see her so I can see what's so good about her!"

  "Plus — " Ling popped her head into the window from outside the kitchen — "you missed over eighty of our calls during that hot date with her the other day. I want to know why you ignore your dear siblings in favour of her."

  Vicente opened the cover of their second steamer, fanning away the cloud of steam that emerged to pick up the tray of custard buns. "It wasn't a date. We don't go on dates."

  "You go for coffee nearly every day to talk!" Ling said, "and I'm ninety-nine percent sure you two don't talk about school stuff."

  "They probably talk about how to be quiet and dull." Leon joined his sister at the window and grabbed a steaming plate of shredded chicken to take outside. "Like, every afternoon they ask each other, 'hey, how do I be as boring and emo as possible?' and that goes on for an entire hour."

  "I'm not emo." He poured coffee into a half-full glass of iced milk tea and placed it in front of the plate Leon was holding.

  Leon picked up the glass of yuen yeung with his other hand and shrugged, then left to deliver the food.

  "Come on, bring her over tomorrow afternoon." Yao began beating an egg with a pair of chopsticks, shouting over the noise of steel striking against steel. "I'll make you two something, and you can have your deep conversations here."

  He pulled out the pan of red date pudding and grabbed a butter knife to ease the sticky red-and-white treats out of their moulds. The smell of red dates and coconut milk filled the air. "Madeline and I don't have deep conversations. We just talk about baking or school. And sometimes about other stuff, but nothing we've ever talked about was 'deep'."

  "You talk about baking your school?" Leon had reappeared at the window. "How would you even find an oven big enough to fit the entire campus in it?"

  "'Baking or school', Ka Long, not 'baking our school'." Vicente popped the last of the red date puddings out of the mould and tossed the pan into the nearby sink. "We're just friends who talk about random things. I don't know why you're so worked up about it."

  "Bring her over anyways," Yao said. "She's the only friend you have here and I'd like to meet her.",

  "But she lives in the city centre, what if she doesn't want to come to this part of Trofilos?"

  "Aiyah, stop making excuses." He slammed the wok down on the stove with a mighty CLANG. "If she's really your friend she won't care about where you live. Invite her here and have some tea with her. If she doesn't like it here, you can just go back to that stuffy coffee shop near the city hall. Okay?"

  With a sigh, Vicente began to neatly arrange the red date puddings on a plate and said in defeat, "okay, fine. I'll ask her. But if she says no, we're going to The Cove like we always do."

  Once the day was over and the siblings had returned to their apartment, Vicente took his phone out to text Madeline.

  Do you want to go to my brother's restaurant after classes tomorrow? (Sent 21:31)
  My siblings want to meet you, for some reason (Sent 21:31)

  A few minutes later, her reply arrived.

  Madeline
  Sure (Sent 21:33)

  Well then. Vicente switched his phone off again and mentally prepared for the chaos that would inevitably occur tomorrow.

...

  As the bus rattled away from the university, the two of them sat in silence. Madeline was looking out the window, where the city was passing by in a blur, and hummed. Next to her, Vicente tried to look busy as he texted Yao.

  Madeline spoke up after they got off the bus. "What's the restaurant's name?"

  "Huang's. In Cantonese, it's Wong Kei." He stepped on a dead leaf, hearing the satisfying crunch. "We've only been open for around a month, but we get by all right." The familiar painted sign emerged in his view. He stopped in front of the glass door of the restaurant. "Here we are."

  The first one who noticed their arrival was Ling, who was buttoning up a flannel jacket over her shirt at the cashier. Surprisingly, she didn't jump out immediately and start planning their wedding. On the contrary, she stepped back, one hand still on the hem of her jacket. "Oh," she said faintly.

  "Yue Ling, are you all right?"

  His sister was wide-eyed, staring at the ground as she hastily returned to the counter. "You're the girl who holds ballet classes at the city hall, right?" Ling pulled the register open and started counting banknotes, still talking rapidly. "Or maybe you're not, I don't know, anyways hi."

  Next to Vicente, Madeline looked just as surprised. "And you're the girl who shows up at all my lessons to watch."

  Vicente gaped at them. "You two know each other?"

  "Not really, no, we're just aware of each other's presence." Ling actually did lunge out from behind the counter this time and grabbed his arm, dragging him into the restaurant. "Jia Lin, she's really cool and good at dancing, so you better not blow this because you struck gold, also why are you wearing that shirt, you look like an old man in it." She pushed him down at a table, looking furtively behind her. Madeline was walking towards the table, looking confused. "Seriously, get better clothes."

  "Why were you watching — "

  "Because I like watching dance." Ling whipped around, nearly smacking him in the face with her hair, and began to march back to the counter. "Why else do you think I had that K-Pop phase last year?"

  He was suddenly struck with the memories of Ling's obsession with attractive Korean pop idols that had lasted half a year. So much secondhand embarrassment had resulted from that. Vicente pinched himself as Madeline sat down at the table. "I assume that was your younger sister?"

  "The one and only. I'm sorry if she made you uncomfortable or anything."

  "No, of course not." She looked around the restaurant. "She shows up at the studio at every one of my lessons, sometimes with a book or a drawing pad, and likes watching us dance. But by the time all the students have left and I'm able to talk to her, she's gone." Madeline smiled a little. "It's good to know that she's just a nice kid."

  Three plates were plunked down on the table, and chopsticks were quick to follow. Leon caught one of them before it rolled off the table. "Hi, welcome to our place or whatever. Don't worry about dying of dehydration, I'll be back with your drinks soon." He gestured at the largest plate, which held four slices of red date pudding. "These are the ones you made so they're bound to be good. Now have fun."

  He ran back to the kitchens before Vicente could thank him.

  Rubbing his temples, he said, "that was Leon, my younger brother."

  Madeline looked at the plate of pudding. "You made these?"

  "Steamed them this morning." He took a pair of chopsticks and placed one of the puddings on Madeline's plate, shaking slightly to dislodge it. "The red layers are made of red dates, and the white ones are made of coconut milk."

  She cut off a corner of the pudding with her chopsticks and tried it. "It's good," she remarked. "But practically everything you make is good, so I honestly shouldn't be surprised."

  There it was again — that strange, giddy rush of pride that came whenever Madeline said something nice to him. He suddenly felt rather hot and looked down, hoping he could blame his flushed face on the lack of air conditioner in the restaurant.

  Leon returned with their drinks. He looked at Madeline holding her chopsticks, then Vicente's expression. He placed the glasses on the table, spilling a bit in the process, and leant down to talk to him. "She can use chopsticks?" He whispered.

  He nodded, trying to act natural.

  "Marry her already!" Leon flicked the back of his head before walking away. He ran straight to the counter where Ling was waiting, already prepared to gossip.

  "Your siblings are interesting." Madeline cut off another piece of pudding and observed it, saying, "it's nice to see you're fitting in all right, even though you only moved here last month."

  "We started out having lots of trouble." Vicente took a pudding for himself. "I began going to school here when I was nine, and I spent nearly every English lesson panicking because I didn't want to say anything. Back then, my accent was so thick you could only make out one of the ten words I said."

  "Did you have any trouble with your classmates?"

  "Not really. I think some of them went the entirety of middle school without knowing my name. And I'd already moved twice before that, so it wasn't too tough."

  "I remember when I first moved to Quebec." Madeline picked up her glass, slender fingers pressing little circles into the condensation. "I couldn't make many friends, and switching to Quebecois French was a nightmare. Having to start all over again after moving here was difficult too. The only things that were the same were my dance training and my brothers, and one of those got taken away." She drew patterns on the table, streaks of water turning into droplets as they left her fingertips. "It'd be nice to have a place to settle down in for once."

  "If I ever have to move to another country again, I'd want to stay in that place for good," he agreed. "I wish there was a way to automatically fit in, so I'd actually feel like I belonged."

  Madeline smiled wistfully. In the wind of the fans whirring on the ceiling, a lock of spun-gold hair fell into her eyes, and she brushed it away. "I wonder what it feels like to not be a misfit."

  He couldn't think of a way to reply. The sound of the kitchen door swinging open cut through the awkward silence and Yao bounded out, grinning widely. "Hello!"

  Vicente was just about ready to throw himself in the oven out of embarrassment. "This is my older brother, Yao."

  "It's, uh, nice to meet you." Madeline set down her chopsticks and held her hand out.

  "I'd shake your hand, but then I'd have to wash my hands again, and I'd rather not go through that hassle." Yao crossed his arms, looking back and forth at the two of them. "Also, I see you can use chopsticks. That's really impressive, it's not every day you meet a Westerner who can eat with chopsticks properly. Back in Arlingdale I once saw one holding his chopsticks like a pencil — "

  "I think I smell something burning," Vicente said loudly.

  Yao elbowed the side of his head. "Nothing's burning. But I'll leave you two to talk on your own. Remember, tell me if she wants to stay for dinner, and if she wants to stay the night, I'll clear out the sofa."

  "I'll be leaving in fifteen minutes," Madeline reassured. She was playing with the hem of her sleeves. "But thank you for having me."

  Once Yao had disappeared back into the kitchen, Vicente heaved a sigh of relief. "I'm sorry if he was overwhelming."

  "Not at all." She took a sip of the tea Leon had left them. "It's nice to see you getting along with your siblings. Lucien and I could never be as close as you four."

  "That's probably the only good thing about moving around and losing friends all the time. You learn to be civil to the people you're related to." He suddenly thought of his parents. "Some of them, at least."

  "Speaking of moving..." Madeline ran over fingers over her braid. "Do you ever miss the place you were born in?"

  It all came back to him — the hundreds upon hundreds of lights, blinking like artificial stars in that tiny region where his eyes opened for the first time; hotels and casinos flaunting their riches by swathing their buildings in garish, gaudy glows. And how could he forget the quiet nights, devoid of conflict and hate, and consisted of just him and Yao looking out the windows? It had been sixteen years since he'd been in Macau, but its tranquil brightness was still fresh in his memory. "Sometimes. I left when I was two, but there are days I wished I was living there instead of here. How about you?"

  Madeline's gaze was far-off. "I left Nice when I was seven," she said, "but I remember my neighbourhood like I still live there now. I remember the chocolatier on Rue Pairolière that sold the most delicious candied ginger and the Promenade des Anglais where the annual pride parade would march through. My dance studio was next to the best patisserie in the entire city. During some holidays, we'd take a train to Monaco, and I'd run off to every fancy-looking building I saw." She drummed her fingers against the table. "Quebec was beautiful, too, but I'll never love it the way I love Nice."

  "Maybe you can go back one day."

  "Maybe," she repeated wistfully.

  The buzzing of her phone cut through the easy silence that had settled between them. Madeline took a look at the screen, and her expression darkened. "Lucien wants me back at the Boulangerie."

  It hadn't even been fifteen minutes. Vicente stood up with Madeline, pushing their chairs in as he followed her towards the restaurant door. "Where do you want to go tomorrow?"

  She waved at Ling. "Back to The Cove, if you'd like."

  "That sounds good."

  Leon and Ling were most definitely watching them from the counter as they left and he gave Madeline a hug goodbye. He watched as she disappeared down the road to the bus station, braid swinging behind her.

...

A/N: Yuen yeung is a drink commonly served at Hong Kong tea restaurants, and consists of milk tea mixed with coffee.