But I was listening to Durk’s newest, third iteration of the same project on this morning, the morning Ryden follow-up texted about moving the couches, after turning up with autonomous bae the night before—she’d just returned from Wyoming from a months-long EMT training—for some reason emboldened to mish it to the Penn Bookstore across the street from ex bae’s grad school office, where I used to grind at and was posted out front of when I first got that call from her, saying she was fucking with women now.

Saying how all those jokes about Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013) had been real.

I was going back to the scene of the crime.

Flying into rather than fleeing the storm.

Or—I was about to. Till Ryden texted.

Accompanying him back to campus, to pick up the couches for him, then, felt like a natural progression.

And possibly saved me from an ex-bae run-in/spazz-out I didn’t want. That would have been a bad look. That I wouldn’t have been able to handle.

It was the tail end of an all-nighter that I ran into Ryden, three days ago.

Seven-a.m.-folks-commuting tail end.

Ryden himself commuting.

Suited up, headed to the El.

Me looking wooked out geared up like a hobo, bundled in jackets on jackets, shivering from sleep deprivation.

From lack of hormone regulation.

Thing was, he knew. Immediately.

I was all: Getting going?

He was all: Winding down? smiling sadly.

Ryden didn’t talk much.

Didn’t small talk.

He spoke when he had something to say.

We rode in silence, looking out the windows, he unaware of all the shit these spots I hadn’t traversed since walking em, almost five years ago, were making me feel.

Ryden used to work with a crew of my ex housemates, at a fancy hotel downtown.

A fancy hotel they were unionizing.

How I met him.

The connections off the rip were too many to fathom.

He hapa—mom Japanese, dad white (Scottish-Norwegian—mine Irish-Swedish). Grew up in California.

His middle name Ryden—‘thunder god’ in Japanese; mine Thor—‘thunder god’ in Swedish.

His birthday February 13; mine, February 14. But lowkey the same since Japan was a day ahead of Cali, timewise.

First (Anglo) name same name-root as mine.

Except he went with his Japanese name, was the difference.

My three-years-younger double.

Ex-roomie bro—from the old house I used to live in—once asked me about Ryden, early on, when he was first inducted into the fold.

Like we were a cult.

We lowkey were.

With the price of admission being undying dedication to the takedown of the Man.

Of men…

But ex-roomie bro went What you think o’ Ryden?

I went Bro I fuck with Ryden. Heavy.

He went Yeah? Can’t get a read on that guy.

“What’s there to get a read on?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t…show enough.

“Keeps you on your toes.