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11:29 AM
“What. Is that.” Kristoph can barely lift his head from the sofa. What began as a slight cough last night has laid him flat today, besides clogging his sinuses and converting his stomach to a treadmill. Settings: ‘medium’ and ‘uphill.’
“It’s chicken soup.” Wright’s tone is, unaccountably, one of apology. “I got the recipe from the back of a box. Knorr concentrated chicken stock.”
“Oh, splendid,” drawls Kristoph. “How lucky I am to have… such a solicitous friend in my life. With such… exacting tastes.”
It is, of course, poisoned.
Loath as he is to bang his own drum, Kristoph has dabbled in both natural toxins and artificial poisons — an old boyfriend of his was a chemist — so he won’t be fooled by this tupperware of soup. It may have an unassuming aspect and a fairly inoffensive smell, but it gives off other warning signs to the percipient observer. It ripples too much when shaken. Its hue is ever so slightly off, a silvery sheen elbowing out the white near the center. And it just… feels malevolent, like an uninvited fairy’s birthday gift.
Wright is finally showing his hand.
(Isn’t he?)
12:03 PM
As Kristoph watches, Wright moves into his kitchen, whose counter is bare but for a lone porcelain bowl. It is filled with Barry Callebaut pralines — tiny little indulgences he permits himself after a phone call with a client, or that bug-eyed journalist, or the Heilig Geist hospital in Frankfurt. A bad habit, but a persistent one. The bowl has occupied that same spot for years.
And now, like a mad alchemist transmuting gold into lead, Wright empties it of its four-figure chocolates, and pours the contents of the tupperware inside.
“What do you think you’re…” The tail of the sentence is half-formed, misshapen. It wags itself into a cough.
“Here.” The bowl is pressed into his hands. “I let Trucy help with the cooking, so just holler if you swallow any dove feathers.” Wright smiles lazily. Aside from the soup, he’s also brought Kristoph a sheaf of napkins and a bucket, which he sets down beside the sofa, politely out of sight. “I hope you’ll manage to keep it down.”
You’d like that, wouldn’t you, thinks Kristoph. Making himself at home, Wright sprawls on the other end of the cushions, momentarily lifting Kristoph’s legs to lay them on his lap, and picks up the remote. Some nature documentary comes on, a leopard graphically tearing out a gazelle’s throat. It is an image Kristoph is well acquainted with: his parents would not let him and Klavier watch violent movies as children, but gave documentaries a free pass. Kristoph closes his eyes. His heart is astir and pounding in his ears.
“You haven’t touched your soup, Kris.”
Pounding, pounding.
“You are aware, aren’t you, Wright, that you are not the only person in my life? I’m waiting for my brother.” And for a meal that is not poisoned, Kristoph puts in, internally. “He called this morning to ask after my condition, and he will drop by in, oh, half an hour at most.”
“Okay,” says Wright, but he is clearly, distinctly disappointed.
(Isn’t he?)
3:08 PM
Klavier fucking stands him up. Apparently he got detained by his music agent, had to visit the studio posthaste to re-record a synth track. As a result, Wright has free rein of the house, which seems to arouse his inner housewife. He lets the Roomba patrol the kitchen a few times, fluffs up a pillow, puts away this or that plate, makes small talk.
The man wanted to be an actor, Kristoph recalls, before he went chasing after his Miles Edgeworth. He plays the doting partner with verisimilitude, but Kristoph knows better, knows… everything. That Wright suspects him of planting that forged page. That Wright is monitoring his activities. That Wright has been nailing him for years in order to — well — nail him. His friend has poisoned the soup, Kristoph is certain of it.
He would have done the same in his place.
Infirmity expands inside him like a water balloon, and comes dribbling out in phlegm and mucus. He feels perfectly miserable and quite helpless. Propped up on the armrest, his legs seem to detach from his body and float away, off to alien horizons and continents unknown.
“Open up, Kris,” he hears dimly. Next thing he knows, his jaw is being pried open, and he pulls back with a hiss — but instead of a spoon, Wright sticks in a thermometer.
A second passes.
Two.
Five.
It beeps.
“Your fever’s coming down,” Wright announces. “Okay. I’m gonna warm up the soup for you. See how nice I am? I’d kill to have someone take care of me when I’m ill.”
“You wouldn’t kill anyone, Wright, for any reason.”
Kristoph is fishing for assent, but Wright only makes a noncommittal hmm sound. He is already in the kitchen, turning knobs and pushing buttons on the microwave. “Oh, hey, you have fresh parsley.” He indicates a potted plant in the corner. “That’s great — the soup could use some garnish. Only the best for your final meal.”
A flinch. “What?”
“I said, ‘although it won’t make the chicken taste like veal.’ Are you feeling all right?” The man strides over to the sofa, leans close, and ever so tenderly kisses Kristoph’s cheek.
That simpleton. That ingrate. He’s playing his smug, insolent little mind games again.
(Isn’t he?)
3:29 PM
Once the parsley has been chopped and the microwave relieved of duty, Wright takes the bowl back to Kristoph’s wood-and-leather mausoleum.
No more excuses come to his mind — but perhaps he doesn’t need them. Wright has had plenty of opportunities to snuff him today and make it look like an accident or a burglary, if he wished it. So, probably he doesn’t wish it. Probably it will all be fine.
And he is fucking starving.
Kristoph lifts up his spoon. The last time he ate chicken soup was a Vietnamese takeaway, where the meat had quickly dissolved into a fat-and-gristle archipelago. Not very notable. But the second-to-last time was in his brother’s college dormitory, when Kristoph attempted to emulate their mother’s recipe, and even succeeded to a large extent. They ate it cross-legged on the bank next to an open window and tried to spell words out of the passing license plates.
He does not want to dredge up those memories. Especially not in front of Wright, who’s sitting in a chair next to the sofa now, sharp-eyed, watchful.
Holding the stem with a hand that is decidedly not shaking, Kristoph brings the spoon to his mouth. As his lips seal around the concave front, Wright thumbs his beanie down an inch. Every time he does this, his whole expression darkens, a power outage of the soul. Still, Kristoph swallows his mouthful of soup: it’s too late for anything else. It has too much salt, as well as a gritty, unpleasant texture — chicken stock that hasn’t finished diffusing, he supposes. He hopes.
“Why,” he pushes out, “why go to all this trouble, Wright?” The bowl feels warm and solid in his hands. Should the food be laced with atroquinine, he won’t feel the effects for another fifteen minutes, possibly even longer.
“It’s no trouble. You know my schedule’s not exactly full these days. And I’m not lying when I say you’re… probably my best friend right now, Kris.”
Kristoph stares at him. Oh, but he is lying, with his smile that’s all lips these days — his teeth invisible, cheeks unstretched, eyes like a fortress on a jagged hill — lying, most fucking definitely.
(Isn’t he?)
3:33 PM
No, Kristoph decides.
He isn’t.
3:34 PM
“Thank you, Wright,” he says. The clouds have parted, and the sunlight of common sense pierces through his paranoia at last.
“You’re welcome.”
The light coming in from the window intensifies, as if to assist his metaphor. Wright scoots his chair forward. He’s wearing another stationary smile: the mirth starts and ends at mouth level.
“Do you want to eat all of it now, or save some for this evening?” The beanie inches down again. The edges of his lips inch up. “Choose your poison.”
Kristoph asks him to repeat that — hopes he has misheard this time, as well.
“Choose your poison,” Wright repeats steadily.
Kristoph looks at him. The other man does not waver or glance away. They see each other, for once, with perfect clarity.