Angel Hired for Thursdays

Chapter 1

CASSIEL

Cassiel counted five.

His nephew’s heel had found his shin five times in two minutes, which meant Jaewon was either building toward a question or had just forgotten Cassiel’s leg existed beneath the table.

Jaewon’s foot swung from a chair too tall for him, steady except for the drift on the backswing that thudded rhythmically against Cassiel’s tibia.

Around the table, his mother’s voice rang out above his sister’s, not louder, exactly, but decidedly more committed to being heard.

Meanwhile, his father ate at a pace he’d discovered decades ago could circumvent most conversation, making small talk someone else’s problem.

David, Cassiel’s brother-in-law, sat at the far end, contributing hums of agreement to whatever Minju was saying, and dropping vegetables into Jaewon’s bowl.

The noodles in the japchae glistened in the light, kkakdugi arranged in another bowl beside it.

Cassiel’s mother maintained that smaller cubes absorbed the brine more evenly, and this was a claim he had never investigated as the result justified the theory.

The cold crunch of radish against his teeth was clean.

Under the table, his thumb turned the beads on his ring—a narrow band on his index finger that clicked faintly when the beads shifted.

Above their heads, the light was the wrong temperature.

It had been that way his whole childhood.

Cassiel had mentioned it to his sister once, attempting to recruit her in lobbying their parents—“4000K is task lighting. 3000K is more appropriate”—but she’d said, “Oppa, it’s a ceiling light,” which was disappointing and spiritually wrong, though he’d let it go.

Minju’s daughter, ten months old and sitting in a booster seat, was distributing more rice across her bib than into her mouth. Cassiel gave her a nod.

“Minseok-ah, eat more,” said his mother in Korean. Minseok was the name his parents had given him, and hardly anyone else said it.

His mother reached across and added japchae to his plate without waiting for consent. This was love. It was also a statement of concern, and he’d learned to accept it, because the food was good and his resistance changed nothing.

Jaewon’s foot stalled. He looked at Cassiel gravely.

“Uncle Cass, is Glamrock Freddy nice or is he pretending to be nice?”

‘Uncle Cass,’ because Cassiel was a pain to say.

At seven, he had taken it from a book he found at youth group—Cassiel, the archangel of temperance and time.

It had felt serious and interesting, and that was what he’d wanted from an English name; a small deliberate choice in a life that had been decided around him.

That he’d grown up to be a horologist was a coincidence.

Cassiel set down his chopsticks. He had watched four hours of videos concerning the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise for this reason.

“He protects Gregory,” Cassiel said. “He helps him escape the Pizzaplex.”

“But all the other an-matronics are bad like the bunny. And he’s one.”

“Being built the same way doesn’t mean you do the same things.”

Jaewon chewed his rice, brow furrowed. The baby watched them both from the booster seat with blank baby omniscience that Cassiel often envied.

“I think he’s got bad inside him ’cause of the Purple Guy,” Jaewon said. “But he’s trying.”

“Mm,” Cassiel agreed. “That’s a solid interpretation.”

The kicking resumed—slower now, roughly thirty seconds between impacts, which meant Jaewon was satisfied.

Cassiel picked up his chopsticks. Minju caught his eye from across the table and gave him a look that said simultaneously, you’re good with him and how does he know these things he’s banned from the iPad. Cassiel kept his face still.

Their mother had been narrating the engagement circuit for most of dinner.

Deacon Cho’s son—the one who used to run the projector during service was engaged now, to a teacher in San Jose.

This fact was aimed at Minju but calibrated for Cassiel’s hearing.

And then the Yoon family’s eldest daughter who met someone hiking and was getting married in the spring.

The Deacon’s son was a church acquaintance from childhood.

Cassiel had stopped attending at twelve.

The Yoon girl was someone he’d gone to high school with, though never spoken to.

His mother carried on. Three engagements, one recent wedding he had not attended, and a claim about some cousin’s coworker who’d found love at an H&R Block. His mother was playing the long game.

“Your appa and I were talking about Chuseok.”

Never mind.

“You always come alone.” She served Jaewon more rice one-handed, eyes still fixed on Cassiel. “I just wish I knew someone was taking care of you—”

“I’m taking care of myself, Umma.”

“Minseok-ah.” Softer now, her tone asking for nothing, so there was nothing to push against. “I worry about you. You don’t go out. You don’t meet people—”

“Umma. I don’t want to talk about this.”

The Korean came out childishly. Twenty-one years of English hadn’t given his Korean an equivalent adulthood. In this language, about these subjects, he sounded younger than his nephew.

His mother studied him and whatever she found there made her reach for the kkakdugi bowl and set it closer to Cassiel.

“—The jjigae came out different this time,” Minju said, louder than necessary. “I think I left the doenjang in too long. Does it taste off to anyone else?”

That turned the tide of the conversation, food being enough of a distraction. Minju was good at this. Cassiel was not.

His father and Minju moved on to Sunny’s. This was the family dry-cleaning shop on Fremont Boulevard, christened after an English name his father had been advised to choose and rarely answered to.

The press was pulling left again. Minju would call the repair company, she assured him. His father objected to that repair company’s rates and offered no alternative. This circled around twice. Cassiel, whose mind was for details unrelated to business and management, said nothing.

David gave Cassiel the smallest nod during the clearing of the table. The paperback he’d been reading before dinner was gone, his lap now claimed by Jaewon, who was busying himself reducing a napkin to shreds. David didn’t seem to mind. Cassiel returned the nod.

At the door—shoes slipped back on, his mother loading containers into a shopping bag—his father appeared beside him. A hand landed on his shoulder. No squeeze, just the weight of the man’s hand, two seconds, and then lifted.

“Drive safe, Minseok-ah.”

Cassiel didn’t drive. He navigated the Bay through an intense interest in BART and bus routes. His father knew this and said it anyway, every time.

“Okay, Appa.”

One more pat. His father went back inside.

Then his mother pressed the bag into his hands, too heavy for the flimsy handles to contain.

She packed enough food for a household every time, convinced he didn’t have enough to eat, undaunted by the fact that he lived alone.

He’d brought up the quantity once. She’d said if he stopped living alone, he wouldn’t complain to her about having too much food. So Cassiel stopped bringing it up.

He put his headphones on before clearing the driveway. The noise-canceling was not necessary here in suburbia, but he liked it even when the outside world was quiet.

The ride back on BART was fifty minutes of perfect nothing. The train car was near empty, and Cassiel began to hum—a few notes, a fragment of a jingle from a cartoon he hadn’t seen in twenty years.

Cassiel loved public transport.

* * *

Lauren had taken her usual perch on the edge of his workbench at Linden & Pratt.

Lauren did not work there and did not have a watch that required fixing.

She’d been told repeatedly that his workbench held calibrated instruments and that sitting on it constituted aggression.

She dismissed this under ‘best friend privileges,’ which did not exist, but Cassiel could not dissuade her.

He was now accustomed to arranging his workbench to account for one thin white woman’s ass.

She was mid-sentence when Cassiel came back from the break room’s counter with his coffee. Lauren liked to speak regardless of whether there was an audience or not—Lauren was audience enough for Lauren.

“He called me at midnight! To apologize. Suspiciously unspecific about what, which means he doesn’t remember or it’s an ‘I dunno, everything?’ and honestly, Cass? What’s worse—”

He cut in with the usual. “Block him.”

“I’m not blocking him.”

“Hit him with a car.”

“Be serious,” Lauren sighed, reaching out a hand to swap the positions of two instruments for no reason.

“I am being serious,” Cassiel replied, and swapped them back.

“My car’s too small.”

“Rent a Cybertruck.”

Lauren scowled. She pulled her knees up and crossed her legs on the bench, one shoe grazing a screwdriver tray organized by head size. This was a breach of the Demilitarized Lauren Ass Zone but, in light of his mood, he chose not to see this.

“Your mom called me, by the way.”

Cassiel set the coffee down on the workbench. No coaster.

“She wanted to know if you’re seeing anyone, like I’m your hookup press secretary.” Lauren tilted her head. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“You would know if I were.”

“Well, yeah, I would. I told her that.” She picked up a loupe, looked through it at nothing, placed it back in the wrong quadrant, because of course she did, she’d already disrupted the Zone. “What happened with the last one? The date?”

A bar in a converted loft with exposed brick and poor acoustics. The man across from him had asked three questions and answered all three himself before Cassiel could open his mouth. Forty-two minutes of his life he could have spent on a video about an old Nickelodeon sweepstakes.

“It didn’t work out,” he said.

“Wow, the detail, it’s like I was there. Thank you. But I had an idea.”

She put her phone between them, the screen showing a minimalistic landing page for some app.