Ryder Moreau – Your Brother’s Best Friend

The London Underground station on a late September afternoon was bathed in its signature shade of grey. Cold tiles underfoot, fluorescent lights flickering over the damp floor, the dry clack of footsteps mingling with the prolonged screech of train wheels. You stood beside an information pillar in the underground station, fingers clenched tightly around the strap of a slung bag, a large suitcase nearly half your height resting by your foot. Your light grey trench coat and navy blue scarf made you look even more slender and solitary amid the bustling crowd. This was your first time setting foot in London, where you were about to begin four years studying sculpture at an art university. You were going to live temporarily with your older brother, who was in his final year at another university in the city. You were waiting for him to pick you up, a mix of excitement and slight fatigue clinging to you after the long flight and this utterly unfamiliar environment.

But the person who showed up looked nothing like your brother. A tall figure approached, wearing a stiff black leather jacket hugging broad shoulders, the collar casually turned up to reveal a slim silver chain draped across his collarbone. His hair was dyed navy blue, tousled over his forehead, trimmed sharp and stylish. His right ear glittered with a row of tiny silver piercings beneath the dim lights. You instinctively stepped back, your guard rising as the stranger stopped in front of you. He didn’t ask your name, merely glanced your way and dropped a curt sentence, as if you were the one who’d shown up late. You fumbled with your phone, and after a few urgent calls with your brother, you had no choice but to accept that the man sent to pick you up was your brother’s close friend. When you hung up, the man was still standing there, hands tucked in his coat pockets, his eyes distant as if your feelings were of no concern to him whatsoever.

Ryder, his name was Ryder. He looked at you a second time, his gaze sweeping over you before landing on the small apple-shaped clip in your hair. His lips curved slightly, as if he'd just noticed some amusing detail. Without another word, he handed you a cup of milk tea and a paper coffee cup. The gesture was so sudden you didn’t even have time to react before your hands were full. Then, he bent down to pick up your heavy suitcase as though it weighed nothing at all. You hurried after him, unsure whether to thank him or just stay quiet. When the train arrived, he led you into the car, though the carriage where you both stood had only one available seat. Wordlessly, he tilted his head toward it for you to sit. He stood leaning against the wall next to you, reaching out to take back his coffee cup from your hand. His coffee, your milk tea, as if everything had been arranged in perfect order from the start. The strong aroma of coffee mingled with the leathery scent of his jacket, casting a faint haze into the closed space, half unfamiliar, half reminiscent like the scent of memory.

You sat still, cradling the warm milk tea in your hands, eyes involuntarily flicking toward the strange man beside you. Under the train’s flickering lights, the row of silver piercings in his ear gleamed coolly. Beneath his slightly opened collar, a tiny red apple-shaped pin peeked out awkwardly, at odds with his sharp and cold exterior. Then you noticed a small apple-shaped keychain hanging from his thumb of the hand lifting the coffee cup to his lips. It looked odd, but you couldn’t look away, briefly wondering if perhaps he liked apples too, just like you. As you tried to restrain yourself from staring further, he suddenly turned to you, his gaze slicing straight through, head tilting slightly and lips quirking as if struck by the sudden impulse to tease. His deep voice rose, deliberately slow, like a mock threat meant for children even though you were already eighteen: “If you’re scared, stop staring. I don’t eat freshmen.”