Sleep smears Namjoon's vision, whites of his eyes stained red with fatigue. It casts a hue on his surroundings, auras blinking out edges of figures and shapes. White subway tiles blur piss-yellow in the fluorescent lights. Steady beats pummel through his headphones, pounding a pattern into his brain less painful than what he’s subjected himself to all week.
Reading his watch takes numerous blinks before he’s able to clear the haze and see the time: 11:47 pm. The escalator descends slowly and he lets it carry his body further underground, uninterested in chasing the fastest way home. Content enough to arrive later as long as it means conserving the last few bouts of energy.
He arrives at the platform just as his train pulls away – a reminder as to why he should have exerted himself just a little more, just one more push.
He closes his bleary eyes. Sleep jumps him for a fraction of a second and he jerks himself back awake, punching back against his mugger.
Blinking off the assault, he shuffles down the platform to find a place to settle in as he waits for his train.
If he thought remaining still might help his vision settle into something more stagnant, he was wrong. The lights continue their explosive dance.
He contemplates how much longer his body can withstand this abuse, the sixteen hour days, the abhorrent amounts of caffeine, the fact that, yes, today is a Friday and, while he won’t have to be in the office tomorrow, he will be glued to his laptop and phone, buckling down for an additional ten or more hours.
He sways at the thought, body protesting in all the ways it can, and he shakes his head to clear it.
Glittering noise catches his eye – something different from the hallucinatory twinkling he’s created – and he snaps his head toward the shine.
A peacocked angel walks toward him, plumes of green and blue poking out of dark waves, sequined tears falling from cerulean-contacted eyes, a pale pink rose painted across full lips. He swoons bodily – fatigue and beauty teaming up against him.
The person catches him staring and tilts their head, the act almost inquisitive. The rhinestones dance, casting prancing light across warm cheekbones, a strong nose. Namjoon can do nothing but let a sheepish smile spread across his face.
A train approaches. The signs are clear even before the train materializes in view: the vacuum of air, the shakes through the tile, the brutish rumble. Namjoon ends his staring only to see which train has interrupted his visual feast. The N. Not his. He returns to his peacock.
But the N belongs to his plumed-interest. They catch Namjoon’s eye, expression unreadable under their heavy makeup, and walk toward the metal beast, disappearing into a belly that welcomes them with a shrill ding and a crackled, “Stand clear of the closing doors.”
And like that.
They’re gone.
—
Namjoon arrives at the train platform every night the next week at the same time, not once met with the success of finding his treasure.
By Friday, he’s convinced himself that the hours have warped his memory, the toll of work more than physical.
Withered to his very core from another grueling week, Namjoon stumbles his way across the concrete, barely able to keep his legs balanced beneath him – nearly as bad as the drunk tourists who have been taking in all Times Square has to offer and now struggle to get back to the LIRR.
His wobbling ceases as soon as he raises his eyes from the grime-covered ground beneath him.
His peacock.
The same feathers stick out of their hair, the same rhinestones adorn their face, but they arrived before Namjoon tonight and they stare out across the platform as they chew thoughtfully.
Namjoon’s eyes rake over them, taking in their long furry duster that barely brushes the tops of maroon chelsea boots. And, out of place, a vibrant orange sphere in their hand, clashing with the blue-green of their feathers, failing to conform to the warm mellow hues of their outfit.
A clementine.
They select a slice and bring it carefully up to princess pink lips. Namjoon watches the entire process in fascination. The disappearance of color, the mastication visible in clenched jaws, through shapes in the flesh of the cheek, the swallow that runs down their throat, bobbing their Adam’s apple along the way, crossing a final goal post.
His staring must be noticed. The person turns and catches Namjoon’s eye.
Namjoon had not realized just how close they were. Perhaps five feet apart. Much too close for two respectable commuters on a nearly empty subway platform. But his peacock is unfazed. All they do is pull another piece of orange with spindly fingers and extend it out to Namjoon.
At another time, Namjoon might have been startled. But his brain has been running through infinite numbers, searching spreadsheets for the greatest return for over eighty hours already this week. So he takes the gesture for what it is: an offering of a sweet treat.
When had he last eaten? The thought hits him, unbidden, but he doesn’t allow himself to travel down that path. It leads to depressing vistas.
He takes the fruit and places it on his tongue. His peacock watches his movements, eyes glued to his mouth, one that he knows is chapped, shriveled from drought, flakes of skin hanging on for the sole purpose of tormenting him with the reminder that he’s failing to take care of himself.
But the stranger doesn’t look at him with the same disgust he saves for himself in the mirror. They look at him with mild interest, as though a television show their friend recommended came on and they figured they might as well give the first episode a try.
Namjoon attempts to make the pilot as inviting as possible. He bites down on the fruit, teeth puncturing flesh, bursting the meat so juice splashes across his tongue. It’s sour. Bitter and sweet. He swallows it down, readying himself to clear his mouth so he can say something – anything, really.
But his fixation on the gift meant that he wasn’t paying attention to any of his other senses, and a train grinds to a halt next to them. He looks at the N with distaste.
His companion backs away from him a step, a wry smile on their face. They turn and get on their train. They don’t look out the window back at Namjoon as they take off into the night.
—
Water drip-drops down his cheeks, hair wringing itself dry via gravity. But it’s Friday, and he was running late leaving his putrid cubicle behind, so he hadn’t bothered finding his umbrella in one of the office closets and instead opted to sprint the three blocks to the deli just above the subway stop and grabbed the first thing that he could and threw a ten dollar bill on the counter – much too much for a packet of M&Ms, but he couldn’t risk being late.
And here he is, panting slightly, facing a peacock-less platform. Perhaps they left already, whisked off by their cursed N train. Namjoon looks down at the brown plastic in his hand in disappointment, surveying the waste he’s created. He supposes he could eat them himself. More likely, it’ll live in his pantry for months until he mournfully has to take the packet out, remembering how foolish he had been attempting to woo a deity with capitalist chocolate.
But in his vision, just past the plastic packet shine, two pointed maroon boots come into view. Namjoon looks up to see the divine being that consumes his thoughts. And they are holding out a hand for an M&M.
—
Despite Namjoon’s certainty that his peacock will not materialize until Friday next, he is unable to quench the flame of hope that alights in his chest each night after work as he tracks his time carefully, acquires a treat, and scurries off to the subway.
The disappointment douses him, a pathetic firefighter, unable to save the victims from harm. When his train inevitably arrives, he plops himself into a seat and reluctantly eats whatever he has in hand alone.
When Friday does arrive, Namjoon stomps down the escalator in possession of a clear plastic container filled with grapes. He lands on the platform, head pivoting in desperation, praying for confirmation of the pattern he’s seen, hoping against hope the exhaustion has not turned to apophenia.
And there.
At the end of the platform, walking ever so slowly, languid step after languid step, is his peacock, preened to perfection.
Namjoon’s intake of breath at the sight is accompanied by a cacophonous crinkle of crepitus. His nerves besting him by tackling his fingers first – he has crunched the plastic in his excitement.
His peacock does not stop until he is a foot away from Namjoon, facing off against him in battle. For their move, they twitch their hand under their coat, reaching into a pocket and extracting two fruit leathers, gleaming under the jaundiced overhead lighting in plastic packaging.
An exchange is made: a fruit for a bastardization of fruit.
The two of them share a smile. And then a train arrives.
—
They continue this dance over the weeks: a pistachio traded for a cracker. A muffin for a Life Saver. A french fry for a slushie. And each week, Namjoon’s chest blooms further, swelling with the growth of something big and bright he has no way to name.
Sometimes the N comes first, his peacock sauntering off before him, and sometimes the R chugs to a slow stop, doors cracking open to reveal orange guts.
Whenever Namjoon is the first to leave, he turns and watches the other disappear as the train speeds away, the bright spot of his week fading from sun to star to the night sky viewed from midtown.
But his companion never stares back out the train window. They break eye contact when the N arrives, board the train, and glide off into the ether, a cosmic being returning to their celestial plane.
Namjoon wonders at times if the fatigue has bested him. If three and a half years of this work has taken a permanent toll. But he has physical proof: a paper towel that held a bell pepper, a brown bag that carried half a deli chicken cutlet sandwich, a wrapper from a Lil’ Debbie cookie that he certainly would never buy himself. Even though he tosses these items when he gets home, their existence serves as a reminder of the immolation.
—
One day, his peacock doesn’t appear.
Namjoon is frozen to the platform, locked in place for far too long. Four R trains stop and start up again, groaning out their displeasure at his abandonment, before Namjoon admits loss. The banana pudding and two spoons in his hands weigh him down, physically pulling at his body, yanking his eyelids shut, and he is barely able to remain upright by the time the fifth R train crawls to a shrieking stop on the tracks. He collapses onto a seat, body surrendering consciousness, and he misses his stop entirely and has to turn around somewhere in Brooklyn.
The following week is dreadful. Work is work and it’s been work, but now he has nothing to look forward to, no rhinestone glittering against a puke-covered subterranean wall.
When Friday rolls around, Namjoon, dejected and exhausted, traipses to his train stop and descends the escalator with heavy footsteps.
He lands himself back on the altar between two sets of train tracks, this time no nourishment in hand to offer as oblation.
In his blaspheming he doesn’t notice at first. Too consumed by his own self-flagellation to understand the import of the silhouette approaching him.
It is only when a body stops directly in front of him that Namjoon looks up.
His peacock, this time without his plumage. No longer hiding under adornments but laid bare for him.
It is clear to Namjoon now that the feathers and gems and makeup were nothing more than grime, disfiguring perfection. The person in front of him is stunning. Otherworldly in their beauty, in every pore, every stake of stubble that pushes through skin, every blood vessel that shines brightly. A blessing personified.
This meeting feels different. Is different. It is time for Namjoon to speak, to open his mouth not for ingestion but for expulsion, passing words to his peacock instead of treats. Despite his effort, they all lodge in his throat, constricting pathways.
It doesn’t matter. His peacock speaks first.
“Take me to dinner.”
Namjoon obeys.